Just a little update, I am now on a Virgin Media trial for the pure fibre, Installation is on the 28th, weird how things turn around so quickly, the plan was to have all the networking under the stairs, I thought I had a year or so to do this work, but no! so rush rush now haha, the story goes...
On the way home from the Gym one afternoon, see a random virgin media guy looking at the open reach poles, he was an inspector, asked him how long until its all live, he said its a couple of months he thinks, explained that I was looking forward to this for some time and that my current internet is shockingly bad (syn'd at 22mb currently) he said there were actually people in the area that were looking for trialist, gave him our information, and said he would pass along if he sees them again, he didn't have to but was nice of him, and off I went, in the hope of a call, I had a little search around the area for people but no joy, 30 minutes later had a call from the guy, over the moon, we find out where about he is so we can talk in person, was just down one of the side roads nearby, the guy was so helpful and pleasant to deal with, unsure how many houses he'd been to but was happy to sign us up for this, turns out this trial is free for 6 months, you get 1gb internet, and a free stream box, and all setup free, oh plus £200 amazon vouchers?! with an " unbeatable offer after the 6 months" amazing deal imo.
after we spoke to the trial rep, he seemed to WhatsApp the information over to someone, and in 20 minutes we had someone call us to setup an account and set an install date, we wanted it asap, but they must have lead times, this was on the 13th so install was just over 2 weeks, on the 28th.
from then on we were kinda on our own, getting texts to check agreements etc, confirming we agree to them, and texts stating we need to go to virginmedia.com/boundary to sort the outside installation out, which I thought was normal, they did have to install stuff outside the house, but they had no idea about the whole PIA system, and I thought I was doomed and never getting it installed, yet AV Online just randomly turned up the next day to install it from the pole to my house, extremely nice guy to chat to, could get my proper nerd on chatting about it all, they didn't even realise it was for trial, as the neighbour comes out and asked if I was getting fibre, and I said yeah then he told the guy he's at the wrong address
the guy did mention the network could do 20gb? So I guess since AV Online has done all the networking here they'd know somehow? if it's true, it's nice to see Virgin doing some future proofing, after living on just shy of 23mb for 2 years, I can honestly say I'll take the highest they'd give me.
Overall there were 5 people and 3 vans, 2 vans/3 people mostly on the pole, with 2 being up in the box and one helping feed the cable, and another doing work on my house.
I origally asked for it to be installed on the side of the house above the porch, so it wouldn't be in on show on the front and easier for cable routing since it was going to be put under the stairs (hopefully) but they said they couldn't do that, and now its down the front, which I don't mind but the misses doesn't like it >.< haha in the way of her plants.
few extra images of the "under stairs work" if you've survived this long
the other side of that wall was nothing, unsure why, we expected to see some sort of flooring at least, but we've lifted and insulated the front room floor, so we can add a little bit of insulation here, as we planned to do the hall way too,
stairs didn't seem to be resting on the wall either weirdly, but when we decide how big our "pull out units" will be that we want there, I'll install some 3x2 bracing my self, even that wood on the bottom right, isn't attached to the stairs, it's just for the extremely horrible lath and plaster that's everywhere -.-
I'll hopefully have a board on the left with all the networking stuff, and a shelf for the (hopefully hub 5x, not the 5, unless it can be mounted) and cloud key (gen 1, might be tempted to switch to tp-link oc200, or just getting the gen 2+ cloud key), switch (GS308E) and PoE switch. (GS305P) which I use to power a UAP-AC-PRO, I've been tempted to buy some upgrades 10gb/5gb switch etc but I can plug my PC directly into the hub, in the 2.5gb port, for now, and not too worried about having over 1gb on wifi, I'll most likely get another AP if the PRO doesn't work as well, but I definitely want and outdoor AP, maybe the TP-link EA225 one will do.
my plan today is to wire brush the wall to get any loose paint off, take that window out possibly, brick it up, as there's a porch on the other side, and hopefully sort out the old tumble dryer vent.
and if all goes well feed some power to the cupboard, still unsure where to pull it from, can get it from the wall to the left, easily or pull a new bit from the tv area in the front room, which weirdly is on its own breaker.
I'm hoping they will install the cable under the floor, up to the stairs, I'm going to setup a pull rod, so they'd just have to pull it, but is this something they'd do?
If you got this far, thanks!
