Local Lunch Unbundling shenanigans & suchlike

[purpletigron]

Question: Is it possible to re-enable a disconnected cable telephone line in the UK?

Background:

Mater has just rented a purpose-built flat with a phone socket in the corner of the lounge.

A series of frustrating phone calls has suggested that this phone socket is connected to a useless piece of obsolete string.

To translate - it appears this is some kind of cable telephone line (probably Virgin Media fibre optic) rather than a copper BT line.

Can someone who knows how this all works answer a simple question which Virgin Media, BT & other phone companies are all disagreeing over:

Can Mater get this in situ line re-activated, or is it a disposable piece of junk which has to be left for dead and replaced?

Supplementary question: if these kinds of cable telephone lines are one-use-only disposable tissues, why would you run one to a purpose-built rented flat, which is going to have a new tenant as often as every 6 months?

Comments

[alexmc.livejournal.com]

Can you explain what the problem is? I only have experience of Virgin Media (or rather the company that it was before rebranding). I had an obvious BT socket, and a separate socket labelled with some other company.

I think that it should be possible from your postcode to determine which company has put cable down your street, and they should be able to help. Is that not happening?

[alexmc.livejournal.com]

This might help

http://www.cable.co.uk/guides/can-i-get-cable-in-my-area/

=====

to answer your second question, no, these are not disposable, one-use-only things. It just sounds like someone's messed up.

[purpletigron.livejournal.com]

Thanks. I don't actually want cable necessarily :-)

But I'm sure at least one person has messaged up!

[alexmc.livejournal.com]

I've just realised that the property is a flat. Do the neighbours have the same cable/socket?

[purpletigron.livejournal.com]

Hmm - good question! Have not yet met any neighbours ...

[teaparty.net (from livejournal.com)]

Not that this is any way helpful, nor relates to anything useful, but I think you mean "local-loop unbundling", not "link". And Virgin Media lines can't be LLU'ed afaik, only resuscitated by Virgin, for which they will almost certainly charge for an engineer's visit anyway, because they can.

[purpletigron.livejournal.com]

Link, Loop, Lunch ... yeah, that's the right L-word :-)

I would rather pay for Virgin to resuscitate the line IF it can then be transferred to a different company.

[gummitch.livejournal.com]

Having had something similar done recently, I think the answer is that whoever you ask to connect you up with a phone will send an engineer round, who will see whether the socket can be used, and if it can he will connect that up. Less work for him. If it can't, he'll put in a new socket.

[purpletigron.livejournal.com]

But what a waste to put in a new line if there's a perfectly good piece of fibre optic cable there.