Yesterday was the day when Virgin Media came to install cable TV and cable broadband (I already had a phone from NTL:Telewest -
as Virgin Media was called until Feb 8).
My decision to change was brought about largely because my broadband supplier of old, Pipex (who also took over my BT line in a deal that got me 3,000 min per month of around-the -clock calls to 01/02 numbers) refused to let me upgrade to a cheaper, faster package unless I was willing to be without broadband - and possibly phone - for an unknown period of time.
The company had repeatedly told me over a period of months, "our [backend] software won't let us upgrade you - you'll have to cancel and sign up again".
Madness!
So, I'll be cancelling Pipex and getting rid of that BT line, too, producing a considerable saving - and in return, be getting broadband at twice the speed I've had until now.
Oh, and I'm dumping Sky, as well, so there will be a further big saving there.
Anyway, first thing yesterday morning, a parcel turned up from SCAN Computers containing among other things a Buffalo WHR-G54S wireless cable router.
Thanks, you lovely Scanners!
I'd ordered this after searching the HEXUS.community and finding
an old thread where this product was suggested for use with cable broadband and had been bought from SCAN.
It turned out that
SCAN had it at what I thought was a VERY keen price - £28.66 inc VAT with delivery free to me (and you and other HEXITES), so I ordered one.
Trouble is, I had second thoughts that perhaps even this small sum had been wasted because I might have been able to use an existing ADSL broadband router I already owned.
As helpful folk in that forum thread pointed out, though, these thoughts were quite wrong - the Buffalo or something like it was what I needed.
But Virgin Media offers no help I could see on its site about how to share a broadband connection with multiple PC and the person I spoke to prior to placing an order told me that the company didn't support the use of routers - effectively saying you can only use Virgin's broadband service with a single PC.
That's patently not true and a silly way to treat customers but, hey, maybe the Virgin Effect hasn't had time enough to reach all the parts that other company ethoses have made limp and dreary.
Around ten to one, I got a phone call from the Virgin Media fitter saying he'd be with me in about five minutes - and he duly turned up a little before 1pm (the company had said some time between 1pm and 6pm).
I showed him (and his mate) which route I wanted the cabling to follow and they hummed and haa'd for a while but agreed to clip-and-drill where I requested.
They made a bit of a mess, which they didn't attempt to clean up, and also did a pretty ropey job with some of the drilling - one wall had a couple of big chunks come out and their idea of making good is VERY different to my own.
Also some of the caps/plugs/grommets that seal up the holes and through which the cable passes are very sloppy fits and tend to pop out if you knock the cable. That's inside, though, not outside - there is a box outside the house where the cable enters and another opposite it on the inside.
Clearly, these guys were working under serious time pressure and all the drilling and cabling-clipping in my rather complex installation slowed them down and probably put them behind schedule.
But, bottom line, they needed more time to do the job properly and chose to get it out of the way - or felt they had to get it out of the way - as quickly as possible.
They made no attempt to set up the broadband apart from getting the cabling into the office and assuring themselves (and me) that the connections to the cable modem were all good.
As they left, one of them asked me if I had been sent a PIN number that I'd need for setting up the broadband and I said yes, not realising that what I had been sent was a PIN number that was only good for the TV side of things!
So, when I followed the instructions presented as the broadband installer CD ran, I hit a brick wall.
I input the PIN number I had (not realising it was only for the TV side) and ended up having to call the 0845 tech-support number cos the PIN wasn't being accepted - though the error message I was seeing also suggested there might be something wrong with my user name instead.
The first person I spoke to (on the Indian sub-continent, I think) quickly realised that he was out of his depth and transferred me to broadband support.
This, seemingly, was in the UK but the person I was put through to told me he couldn't help and put me through to someone else.
At that stage, it became clear why I had not been sent a PIN number for broadband - nobody had thought to allocate one to me!
So, while I waited on the line (at 6p a minute?) the guy I was now talking to said he'd get one set up for me.
The whole process - from first getting through to Virgin Media to having a PIN number created for me - was about 13 minutes which, given the nature of the problem, I thought was pretty good (even though I'd have preferred to have had the problem solved by the first person I spoke to, rather than the third).
Once I had the PIN number, I was able to continue following the instructions being provided to me by the installer CD but then I hit another brick wall that required me to phone the support number again.
This, too, was a problem that could and should have been avoided.
The installer was telling me it couldn't connect because of an IP error and that I needed to call the support number.
When I did that, the bloke (Indian sub-continent?) knew exactly what the problem was because, I'm assuming, it's one he's dealing with so often.
He told me that the error message I was seeing was not relevant to a cable modem installation only to an old-style phone modem installation.
The situation is that Virgin provided me, a cable-modem customer, with a broadband set up CD that is intended for use with a phone-type modem - and may be doing the same to everyone else who signs up for cable broadband!
D'oh!
My man on the phone told me just to cancel out of the error message (in effect, to stop running the installation CD any further) and see what happened when I fired up a browser window, because he reckoned, I'd be up and running at that stage - and, sure enough, he was right.
Clearly - and even ignoring the dodgy drilling and muck left behind - not really a very satisfactory broadband-installation experience:
* I'd imagined (perhaps wrongly) that the fitters were supposed to sort out everything with the broadband installation and leave me with a working internet connection
* No one at Virgin Media had thought to allocate me the necessary broadband PIN number
* The installer CD supplied by the fitters was the wrong one (mind you, it's possible there isn't a correct CD for cable modems) in that it was intended for use with phone-type modems.
Fortunately, once the broadband connection was seen by the PC, it was a doddle to set up the Buffalo router so that other PCs can get on the net, too - thanks to an on-CD wizard that shows you what to do every step of the way, and which actually worked exactly as it should.
Phew!
Now all I've got to do is:
+ Remember to cancel Sky before March 23 (or have to pay another month's subscription)
+ Email everyone relevant with my new non-business email address
+ Set up email accounts for wife and two kids - on the PC, once these have been set up on line (something I failed to do a couple of times because that side of the Virgin site kept on freezing up) and then explain that they need to email all their contacts with the new details
+ Tell business contacts my new business phone number (a SkypeIn number which is way cheaper than the £11 per month I'm paying to BT for a phone line)
And then,
+ Cancel Pipex
+ Cancel the BT line
And all because Pipex wouldn't give me the same sort of deal that it gives new customers!
Thanks for nothing, Pipex!
Things were a little better on the TV side, which the Virgin Media fitters did get working fully before they left.
However, the TV receiver box was set up in a very basic way - a Scart lead being run from the box's TV output to the TV itself.
There was no discussion at all about how the box would fit in with all the other AV kit there - not even the VCR.
That, seemingly, was my problem. Okay, that wasn't what they said but it was the implication and they had no idea, of course, that I eat problems like that for breakfast.
After they'd left, what I needed to do to get the TV side of things sorted was:
* Figure out how to get sound from the TV box through the VCR.
I'd assumed that with all the moving of kit that some cable or other had come loose, so checked the cabling that goes from the VCR to the AV amp and from the amp to the TV set before concluding that, since nothing seemed disconnected, there might be a setting, somewhere in the Virgin box's menu, that needed tweaking.
And, sure enough, the volume for the VCR Scart output was set to zero!
But why? What kind of stupid default setting is that?
* Get an RF signal from the Virgin box to the main TV and another in the dining room
That was necessary for two reason. Some family members are none too comfortable using the AV amp or switching between different AV inputs on the TV set, so I've made life easier for them in the past (even if it makes for rubbish picture and sound quality) by having the TV set tuned in on Channel 6 to the Sky box's RF output.
This same RF signal also gets fed through from the living room to a TV in the dining room.
I wanted the Virgin box to do the same - be accessible via RF using a channel setting on the living room TV set and also on the dining room set.
Sod's Law, though, the kit that Virgin supplied had no aerial cables and the less-than-fulsome instructions that were left with me after the fitters had gone gave no clue what RF channel the Virgin box output its signal on or, indeed, whether in fact it allowed anything more than an aerial pass-through.
Fortunately, I just happen to have a BIG box full of RF cables and, contrary to what I just said, there was actually one little clue that the Virgin box might have an RF output.
The single-sided A4 instructions that were left with me had three connections-scenarios, one of which shows how to connect the Virgin box to the TV by RF cable if the TV and or VCR have no Scart sockets.
But what it didn't mention was the need for you to tune in the TV (or VCR) to whatever RF channel the box was outputting - something I knew must be the case but most folk might not have a clue about.
Fortunately, a quick tune on the main TV located the right channel (around 56 as I recall) and the same was true for the TV in the dining room.
Sure, none of this was a problem for me but I can see that anyone who's not really comfortable with AV kit might end up in a situation where they'd need to call someone out on a chargeable basis simply to be able to record to a VCR with sound as well as pictures, never mind having RF access to the Virgin TV channels, not just access via AV inputs.