Probably the ugliest equipment and install I have ever seen

[carlwaring]

I have to agree that being there is the only way to get it done right. Both mine (in 2007) and my parent's (last year) installs were supervised and completed to our exact requirments. Even when, in my parent's case, this involved running the cable through a "pipe" that had already been placed in-situ underneath the floorboards!

[Jason1975]

Originally Posted by jb66

I would do jobs worse than that if i was paid by job

And this is the problem right here. Zero pride in your work.

I am in this same field of work and I have companies and schools ask me to come sort out their cabling and rack boxes.

I do the work very well, and word of mouth spreads and this is how I get more work.

I take pride in my work, and have even told some guys I employed to pull trunking off the wall and redo it because it is not straight.

The point is this. Do the job correctly, and you get repeat business, do it badly and you get 10 times the 'bad press'

I will never recommend Virgin to anybody.

*It takes little more time to do things well than to do things badly*

Or, as one of my first team leaders (in programming) put it -

"strange how we never have time to do it right, but we always find time to fix it".

Originally Posted by Jason1975

And this is the problem right here. Zero pride in your work.

I am in this same field of work and I have companies and schools ask me to come sort out their cabling and rack boxes.

I do the work very well, and word of mouth spreads and this is how I get more work.

I take pride in my work, and have even told some guys I emplyed to pull trunking off the wall and redo it because it is not straight.

The point is this. Do the job correctly, and you get repeat business, do it badly and you get 10 times the 'bad press'

I will never recommend Virgin to anybody.

*It takes little more time to do things well than to do things badly*

I really think your missing the point completely .VM installers have a massive workload to be completed in one day ,i think i am right in saying that they are payed by the job so the more jobs the more money (the same pay structure as me)If they don't do all the jobs because they take too long over a job then they lose money and may not earn enough to pay bills ect .You on the other hand have the liberty to quote for jobs and therefore the luxury of taking your time and getting it right first time ,the same as me when i quote for jobs .You need to take a step back and think about things ,you are ,as you say capable of doing the job to a much higher standard ,then quit whining and do it yourself with a cable and box in the colour of your choice where you want them .
You have been told that VM only carry one colour cable and one colour box ,you must appreciate that it is impractical to purchase all available colours in case someone wants a specific match to brick work ,that would be a specialist job ,one that you sound as if you undertake ,VM do not do such jobs ,it would greatly increase the price of your install and service (if you were charged for it at all)

judging by some of the horror stories on this forum i would say you had a pretty good install

[Jason1975]

Originally Posted by martyh

I really think your missing the point completely .VM installers have a massive workload to be completed in one day ,i think i am right in saying that they are payed by the job so the more jobs the more money (the same pay structure as me)If they don't do all the jobs because they take too long over a job then they lose money and may not earn enough to pay bills ect .You on the other hand have the liberty to quote for jobs and therefore the luxury of taking your time and getting it right first time ,the same as me when i quote for jobs .You need to take a step back and think about things ,you are ,as you say capable of doing the job to a much higher standard ,then quit whining and do it yourself with a cable and box in the colour of your choice where you want them .
You have been told that VM only carry one colour cable and one colour box ,you must appreciate that it is impractical to purchase all available colours in case someone wants a specific match to brick work ,that would be a specialist job ,one that you sound as if you undertake ,VM do not do such jobs ,it would greatly increase the price of your install and service (if you were charged for it at all)

judging by some of the horror stories on this forum i would say you had a pretty good install

I understand that there are only set colours and the engineers are not at fault for this. I understand cost implications of carying different colours, but think most consumers would not mind paying an extra couple of pounds for a housing that better matches their exterior. (this point is useless arguing about as it is how it is -- good old brown)

I am going to see if I can get the cable and do it myself, this way if the job sucks there is only me to blame!

[Peter_]

Originally Posted by Jason1975

I understand that there are only set colours and the engineers are not at fault for this. I understand cost implications of carying different colours, but think most consumers would not mind paying an extra couple of pounds for a housing that better matches their exterior. (this point is useless arguing about as it is how it is -- good old brown)

I am going to see if I can get the cable and do it myself, this way if the job sucks there is only me to blame!

You cannot change the external cabling as the bigger of the 2 the siamese cable will be the drop cable that goes back to the cabinet, and if you chop it you will be liable for its replacement and you could even cause your neighbours to lose their connections as well.

[Jason1975]

Originally Posted by Masque

You cannot change the external cabling as the bigger of the 2 the siamese cable will be the drop cable that goes back to the cabinet, and if you chop it you will be liable for its replacement and you could even cause your neighbours to lose their connections as well.

I have had a look and I can't see this happening.

Logically it would seem that the long cable tacked along our wall can be cut back to fit in the corner on the right. The telephone cable tacked down our wall will need to be replaced and extended under the eaves and around the window on the right to re connect to the virgin box that has been replaced.

Cutting this back will obviously kill our signal, but just while I re crimp everything.

The cable comes onto the property from the right (incidently the engineers did not even bother to bury it--although I am sure some guys will post and say it is well within acceptable installations to leave a cable drapped through plants and not burried)

The only cables that need replacing will be the telephone cable, and also the internal co ax. (I was suprised to find the fibre does not run to the actual house)

I would need the cable from Virgin anyway, so this is not really practical. I would however tackle it and do it correctly if the droped some cable off for me

It is absolutely not within acceptable standards to leave the drop cable on the surface in your garden.

This is a key piece of information you neglected to mention earlier. The install is a total bodge if they have not buried the cable. You really need to pursue this with them as a complaint about a substandard installation before you do anything drastic like cutting the cables yourself.

Originally Posted by Chris

It is absolutely not within acceptable standards to leave the drop cable on the surface in your garden.

This is a key piece of information you neglected to mention earlier. The install is a total bodge if they have not buried the cable. You really need to pursue this with them as a complaint about a substandard installation before you do anything drastic like cutting the cables yourself.

Chris i was under the impression that cables were not buried by the installer as this would mean digging up lawns/flower beds and drives ,i know mine isn't buried it is fed through the hedge that divides our property .I know people have pre dug trenches or put pipes under drives prior to instalation because they are aware that the cable will not be buried

[jb66]

It's usually burried about a spades depth

[joglynne]

Sorry to butt in but I have only just caught up on this thread and must say as a customer I would also be upset to find the install was done the way it was.

OK from a technical point of view I accept that it is probably faultless but who ever did this install didn't bother to consider how it would look, and it looks a mess.

Surely installers have a duty to consider how a finished job will look? If they have to lay through grass I assume they are expected to leave the grass as near to how they found it as possible? Why should Jason be expected to have to repaint the front of his house to get rid of the resulting eyesore he has been left with. It's not up to the VM employee to decide that as other cabling and paint work isn't pristine he has no need to bother about the route of the cables he is installing.

Just how much harder would it have been to put the box under the right hand corner of the window and run the cable up the right hand side of the window frame then over the top, under the line of the tiles across to the front door area. If he was capable of doing the job as well as he did then I assume that having to climb his ladder a couple of times extra would hardly have cost the installer more than a few more minutes.

Even without Jason requesting it be done this way I would have expected the installer to use a bit of common sense and, looking at the job as he walked up to the house, consider the options of how it would look before starting work

Originally Posted by jb66

It's usually burried about a spades depth

Absolutely - it should be buried a spade's depth across the lawn. There is no reason why a lawn should suffer any more than very temporary damage as a result of having a cable properly buried in it.

Originally Posted by Chris

Absolutely - it should be buried a spade's depth across the lawn. There is no reason why a lawn should suffer any more than very temporary damage as a result of having a cable properly buried in it.

If that is the case i think that is a very bad idea ,i would have thought that burying a cable that shallow is risky for the home owner not to mention future owners who don't know it's there

[Peter_]

Originally Posted by martyh

If that is the case i think that is a very bad idea ,i would have thought that burying a cable that shallow is risky for the home owner not to mention future owners who don't know it's there

It should be buried within a green protective tube to try and prevent spade damage.

[jb66]

Originally Posted by martyh

If that is the case i think that is a very bad idea ,i would have thought that burying a cable that shallow is risky for the home owner not to mention future owners who don't know it's there

What do you think should happen and how would virgin do it?