Virgin Media

[JBR]

It's more likely that your connection is coax not fibre. What VM advertising as fibre is closer to fibre to the cabinet as the fibre ends at a large powered box that could be half a mile from you. From there it is sent over coax to lots of street cabinets.

Yes, I believe you are perfectly correct.  As I understand it, my coax connection extends down the road and across to a box on the other side.  A distance of less than a hundred yards.
Nevertheless, our connection is reliable and fast, so I have no complaints.

[klondike]

If it suits you then fine. Your cabinet will be one of many fed by the optical node where the fibre terminates.

I checked and it seems that VM are now installing their own fibre. They used to supply areas they hadn't cabled via the Openreach network years ago but pulled those products. They were carrying huge debts so I'm not sure where they are getting the money for that.

[Alex]

Well I've switched, but don't know if I've done the right thing.  The package I originally wanted was no longer on offer, I imagine they must have been busy since the TalkTalk announcement.  So I've got another package which still includes Netflix, and has lots of TV channels including Sky Atlantic and Sky Sports.  I'll no longer have a land line and I may have to buy a bloody TV licence, unless I can watch all these channels on catch up ?  Time will tell....