Well done Virgin Broadband

[Dos_Box]

Since early Christmas eve the broadband here suffered some very nasty outages.

Virgin were quite quick on the scene with a van turning up and staying by the fibre cabinet at the end of the road and restoring the internet. Something major must have happened as they ran a cable from the van and sat there until about midnight each day and returning at 8-9am.

 

They are still there now, so whilst on a walk around the local park this evening I made a short detour to find out what had happened.

Turns out that the cab is powered by a nearby streetlamp, this streetlamps mains power is dead (knackered cable bay all accounts). The problem for Virgin is that the lamps are the responsibility of Lancashire County Council and not Electricity North West (who have 24/7 call out) and they cannot get anyone out to fix it until at least tomorrow.

 

The van is to provide power and charge a portable battery pack they have placed within the cab which handles late night traffic when they have gone.

So Virgin have had people sit there 16 hours a day over the Xmas period so we can have net access.

 

Well done them, heaven knows what it would have been like if the kids couldn’t play with their latest gizmos and games which required at least an online connection to setup!

[Katy]

Well done them, but powering a data cab off a street lamp sounds a bit dodgy in the first place....!

[Dos_Box]

Well done them, but powering a data cab off a street lamp sounds a bit dodgy in the first place....!

 

Probably a lot quicker than having to dig in a whole new mains feed, and lots of city based wifi networks are run from street lamps.

[mavhc]

Well, they do have a tunnel back to the exchange, could be used for power. Don't really see any info on how they're usually powered

[MatthewL]

If it was me I would get a generator, chain it to said lamp post and leave it till it could be fixed.

 

Fair play to them for doing that though.

[Oddbod]

Knowing that the local criminal element nicked a generator powering a local primary school in Alton while the electricity board were laying in a new power cable… means virgin made the right call.

 

Plus any fallout has been mitigated…

Edited December 27, 2018 by elsiegee40
Edited for language by Moderators

[AlanD]

Well done them, but powering a data cab off a street lamp sounds a bit dodgy in the first place....!

 

...I thought there was a plan to provide charging points for electric cars this way when we are all using them in 10 years time....

[Katy]

...I thought there was a plan to provide charging points for electric cars this way when we are all using them in 10 years time....

 

Still, I'd have expected a cab to take its power feed from the power going TO the lamp post, not be hooked up inside the lamp post ready to fail whenever someone drives into it. Given that they have to dig the path up to get the cable from cab to lamp post, surely hooking up to the lamp post feed underground would be a better option.

[matt40k]

...but using the lamps power is paid for the council, so free electric for BT\Virgin??

 

(I have no idea if this is correct and I've worked for a council and a electric company)

[TechMonkey]

...but using the lamps power is paid for the council, so free electric for BT\Virgin??

 

(I have no idea if this is correct and I've worked for a council and a electric company)

I bet this is a money spinner from the council. VM pay the council a fixed rate per hook up and VM don't have to get a direct power hook up or worry about actual power cost.