Found a lovely house but worried about broadband speed

[Systemagic]

Hi, hoping someone has experience with this issue and/or knowledge of how Virgin Media installations work.

After more than a year of looking, we have finally found a lovely house that seems to tick nearly all the boxes for us. We want to put in an offer - hurray.

I am starting a new job next week which will be entirely WFH, with lots of Zoom/Teams meetings including talking to clients. My husband is also likely to be WFH for 2-3 days a week. Therefore fast broadband is a must - we currently have Virgin which is fine.

Having done some research, at the new property there is currently no fast fibre broadband (it's coming "soon" according to Openreach) and the projected speeds of 2-10mbps aren't going to cut it for us.

However, when I input the postcode on the Virgin Media site and select the house address, it says Virgin Media is available. Great, I thought, that's fine. Then I thought about it some more......

• current owners do not have Virgin Media
• the property does not border the pavement
• the property is accessed via a short tarmac driveway - not owned by the property, but they have right of way over it
• from the boundary of the property to the house itself, there is a lot more tarmac. In fact the whole area at the front of the house is covered in tarmac - you could get 4 - 6 cars on there.

Does anyone know if Virgin would install their service in this situation, or will they run a mile? Is it something I could resolve by throwing money at it?

And are there any other broadband solutions that I haven't thought of?

I will call Virgin Media tomorrow and see how far I get with them, but I also need to make an offer tomorrow (they have already had one at asking price) so I thought I'd see if the wise people here have any knowledge or experience.

Thanks in advance for any help you can offer.

Having gone from normal Fibre to FTTP last year it would be a deal breaker for me because I have teenagers who want to be able yo stream games while watching Netflix etc

Does it have to be virgin? I have Sky and managed on about 20mbps that was with me on teams etc and at least another 3 devices connected (some watching videos)

But teams really won't like speeds of 2-10 Mbps, we had that at one point and I was always late because it wouldn't connect.

In my experience, don't rely on anything that Openreach central bureaucracy tells you. The local Openreach engineers are very good, but deal with the real-life, not with what's been marketed. Talk if you can to a local telephone engineer, or - almost certainly there will be one, if you are in an area of rubbish telecoms - to the local communications community pressure group. THEY are the local experts. What they can share will be invaluable.

Remember, that almost everywhere outside big cities, the companies selling you broadband have to rely on the local central line/local link provider. Very often, this is Openreach. For my comment on them please see above.

It’s not necessarily the provider. Is the property rural? Can you ask prospective neighbours about their experience? Where I live it doesn’t matter what provider we have (we’ve had 3), the speed is poor. When a lot of properties in the street are using broadband simultaneously (eg during lockdowns), it’s worse. I have a 4g router for work, and switch between that and our wifi depending on which drops during the day. It’s not ideal

Have a look at mobile WiFi. I have one through 3 and it's fast enough for teams/zoom/streaming services.

Don’t rely on what Virgin tell you right either. Their website/database/call centre says we can get FFTP. No we can’t. That’s the next street (new properties, same postcode). In the 20 years we have lived here nothing new has been installed to the older properties. BT can provide up to 50 Mg, usually nearer 38. Their website/customer service etc still sat 50, so i’d take any estimates with a 20% sized pinch of salt.

We struggled on 1-5 early in lockdown with 2 adults WFH and 2 children doing school work at home. The crunch came when it took 16 hours to upload a not-super-massive document.

Sub 50 Mg broadband would be a deal breaker for me.

If I'm reading correctly, it sounds like there is virgin media on the street, & the house is built in the back garden of another house, who own the side access to it.
Not sure what the max distance from pavement to residence is for virgin media, bit I think your main issue will be getting permission from the land owner to dig a trench through it. Is there a border or similar where the cable can run?

We had a very similar experience and ended up buying a house that ticked all boxes except for the broadband speed. Mind you that was 3 years ago when we were office based! BT have just upgraded the fibre in the whole street and we can get to 500 mbs (theoretically). Very similar situation where the house is down a driveway owned by the neighbours and we managed ok over the last year or so with 2 adults wfh and 3 kids on zoom calls! But we also have mobile wifi as a backup. I would say check network connection and ring BT to check if they’re planning to upgrade anytime sooner?

Thanks for all the replies.

The house isn't quite rural, it's on the edge of a village, and there are lots of other towns around (i.e. this is not the back of beyond).

The access driveway is owned by a local farmer who also uses it to access his field behind the house....I suspect part of his field was sold off to build the house (many years ago) hence why the house is set back a bit from the pavement and other properties.

I did consider Sky broadband but there are so many bad reviews online! I suppose the same could be true of any provider.

I think I need to go back to look at the exact layout again from pavement to property, as well as speaking to Virgin and also going back to the estate agent/owner to see if they can add anything of value.

Having got myself really excited this morning that we had finally found 'the one', I am now not sure at all that we will be able to put in an offer tomorrow.

Funny how Covid has changed things.....we weren't even considering WFH as a factor when we started looking around at houses two years ago. Now we need two offices and super fast broadband!

I'd be wary of projected speeds on these website tools.
I had a supplier stating I'd have upto/around 30Mbps ... however, it turns out I'm in a total dead-zone and could barely load a website to check my Internet banking!
It was a nightmare to switch and they referred me to these tools, which showed it was in fact absolutely crap.
I'd say speak with Virgin media directly - they aren't gonna hassle themselves to come out if they can't give you broadband. So if they're confident they can fit it, they'll happily take your money monthly! hehe.

It would be a dealbreaker for us. Fast internet with working from home and 3 teens... there would be anarchy if we didn't have it!

Can't help much but check out mobile broadband (especially if 5g is in your area). In some cases you can get better than standard broadband speeds.

We have Virgin and had it installed.

You need to see if you have the right to install services accross his driveway? You probably do but be mindful about reinstatement costs.

I don't know whether Virgin will install across a driveway. If they do the reinstatement is likely to be awful. Unless it has changed, a lot of their installations are outsourced to people driving Virgin vans but laid peanuts to do the install. For us, it turned out they laid accross u der the grass but instead of digging a channel to the mandatory level, they literally shovelled under the lift the grass and laid the cable under it. That's fine until you try digging the flower bed and hit the cable, or worse extend and replace the driveway to find the installer won't proceed until the cable is out at the correct depth!

Our neighbour had them and found that the cable had been run around the house using the inside of the guttering!

The best way with Virgin is do what you can yourself. Ie we had an extension and needed all new BB cable. We installed it all ourselves (well the builder did) and they just connected it. They are really happy then as they get the paid the same as an install for just connecting a few cables.

However, I did hear that they were looking at taking some of the stuff back in house due to bad feedback so might be worth seeing what others experiences are and getting it surveyed by them if they do?

I often get told on MN that everywhere can get decent broadband but its just not true. Our village has been upgraded to super BB whatever that BT says but the reality is that most of the village Still has poor bb. We can now run two zooms but that means we can't have Netflix on or the PS. Do get round this we have two separate phone lines (so two lots of BB rental etc) entertainment runs on one and zoom on the other.

You may be better checking your local council's rural broadband plan for a more accurate date for arrival.

As others have mentioned - mobile broadband can be a solution….get yourself a 4/5G dongle & done ✅!

I do mean this kindly OP but a couple of amber flags to consider:

Suggest asking sellers/neighbours about:

• Broadband speeds/providers

I live in a hamlet in the north west within spitting distance of M6 and major city. No super fast broadband. BT is only viable supplier. Just about manage to WFH with two routers and unlimited 4g data on phone as backup.

• Farmer’s ownership of drive and frequency of using right of access

Buy title deeds from land registry to check legal ownership of track and right/responsibilities of farmer and house owner. Will farmer let you dig it up to lay cables? How far is your house away from the drive? Can the farmer access the drive at any time or does s/he have to notify you first? If you have/are planning children can you keep them safe if the farmer is racing up and down the track to roll/harrow/top/get the hay, straw, harvest in?

Good luck OP whatever you decide to do.

Whilst checking Broadband speed, also check mobile phone coverage, . particularly if you have a work mobile with no say over which provider they use.

My experience of living rurally is that this is worse than the Broadband for functionality.

And make sure you are given the indoor coverage information…

Thank you all so much for all the really helpful comments.

I am feeling a lot more positive now. I went back this afternoon and found the Virgin Media square thingy on the pavement. Luckily VM have located it by a grass verge (which I hadn't noticed!) which runs part way along the shared drive and JUST touches the nearest corner of the property. So, I think no need to dig up the shared drive at all.

Also the estate agent spoke to the current owner and they say they have superfast BT broadband and are able to WFH, even though the BT website tells me it's not possible.

I'm also reminded by this thread that I need to upgrade my ancient mobile so I can fall back on mobile data if necessary - thanks for that! The mobile coverage seems OK.

So one way or the other, I think we'll be OK, and I have now put in an offer and have my fingers crossed that it will be accepted.

Sometimes BT will tell you its not possible to get FTTC if the green cabinet is full, if you google and find the cabinet for the postcode it will tell you if FTTC is full or if there is a waitlist and you have to use ASDL until there is a space hence 2-10 mbps only being available.

Cabinet will also tell you max you can get, ours is 44mbps so even if we buy up to 57 mbps we won't get 57.

Just because the people living there have FTTC it doesn't mean that people moving in get it if cabinet slot isn't available. If there is FTTP then cabinet capacity is not relevant.

If you're really stuck you can have a satellite connection. It's obviously more expensive but not silly expensive.

Your company MAY assist towards the cost.