[Tim Deegan]

Originally Posted by Kizza

Thank you qasddsaq! At last someobody who sees this issue from a consumer's point of view.

While I have got some very valuable technical information from this forum, I feel like I have stumbled into a cable-installers union. It's not unusual for people who work in a particular industry to see the issue from their own experience and point of view. But please remember, I am not part of your industry.

As a layman I was not aware from looking at other houses in the street what cables were associated with which particular broadband provider.

I got my knowledge from putting in my post code and realising our building was not connected whereas the house next door was. From further reasearch I discovered that the previous freeholder of our building did not reply to the fibre optic company at that time when asked for permission. Later on we were able to take over the freehold because ownership had lapsed.

If my neighbour has painted his Virgin black cables white, how am I to know this?

Let me say again, I am NOT blaming the installers. I am saying that after the survey, that someone at management level at VM should have pointed out to me that black cables would criss-cross a white building. We then could have negotiated or moved on from that position.

Let's take an extreme version: a surgeon would point out the negative repercussions or side effects of a surgical procedure to a patient regardless of whether the patient asked about the side effects or not. This is because the surgeon is aware that the patient will possibly not know to ask about the repercussions or side effects.

As for photos... I get the feeling that if I put some on here that people would say I was just moaning. I think you'd have to be here to see it.

However... we are now thinking about just waiting til the building is painted. As someone said, we are lucky to have had all this work done for us for free. Never look a gift horse in the mouth after all. It just would've been useful to have been told about the asthetic repercussions which, as consumers, we were unaware of.

Well at the end of the day you have learned a valuable lesson...in future always ask questions before purchasing, or accepting anything.