why is there a power cable connected to the Virgin broadband socket?

[Eric714]

I recently got Virgin broadband installed.(only broadband no TV,no phone)

there are total of 3 cables:

-the broadband cable that connects to the Virgin Hub 3
-a power cable for the hub's adapter
-and 3rd coax cable that runs from the Virgin socket to a power adapter plugged into wall socket.

what is this power cable for?

 

[dante01]

Virgin do occassionally install a signal booster to the coax feed.


You say coax goes to it from the inlet box but rthere's no coax feed going out of it though?


I can tell you catagorically that they are not connecting the coax directly to a power adaptoer and they will not be running power via coax leads.




Maybe take some pictures and post them here.

 

[Eric714]

Virgin do occassionally install a signal booster to the coax feed.


You say coax goes to it from the inlet box but rthere's no coax feed going out of it though?


I can tell you catagorically that they are not connecting the coax directly to a power adaptoer and they will not be running power via coax leads.




Maybe take some pictures and post them here.

there is a white cable (similar to coax) from inlet connected to the Virgin socket.

so in the first picture,the white adapter with green LED on outlet connects this cable to Virgin socket in the second picture.

 

[DavidT]

I've not seen that before. Presumably its power to a signal booster.

 

[ChuckMountain]

I can tell you catagorically that they are not connecting the coax directly to a power adaptoer and they will not be running power via coax leads.

Maybe take some pictures and post them here.

Why would you say categorically, it’s not unusual to send voltage over coax. Most satellite cables will be carrying a voltage to the lnb.

Why haven’t virgin actually screwed it to the wall.

Has Virgin only recently been available in your area? It could just be a fibre to coax converter and that’s the psu for it

 

[Eric714]

Why would you say categorically, it’s not unusual to send voltage over coax. Most satellite cables will be carrying a voltage to the lnb.

Why haven’t virgin actually screwed it to the wall.

Has Virgin only recently been available in your area? It could just be a fibre to coax converter and that’s the psu for it

Yes Virgin wasn't available in my area until recently.
they didn't screw it to the wall probably because they decided to put/hide it in in the shelf where boiler and some pipes are..
again I wasn't home at the time when they came to install it.

what is fibre to coax converter? I've never seen anything like this.
it's always been just 2 cables, one coax to the router and a power adaptor for router?

 

[ChuckMountain]

The second picture doesn’t look particularly like a fibre converter but just like a normal splitter.

There are 3 cables all going in or out but all look like normal coax cables.

You should be able to unscrew the two screws on the front of the box and then take a photo of the actual splitter.

 

[dante01]

Why would you say categorically, it’s not unusual to send voltage over coax. Most satellite cables will be carrying a voltage to the lnb.

Why haven’t virgin actually screwed it to the wall.

Has Virgin only recently been available in your area? It could just be a fibre to coax converter and that’s the psu for it

I can see no reason why Virgin would ordinarilly connect a coax cable to your mains electricity?

Yes, they opccassionally use signal boosters that are powered by your mains power supply, but this doesn;t sound like what the OP is describing?

I've had such a booster installed here and it was nothing like what is being shown in the images posted. THe feed came into the building as normal and went into the booster the booster had a conventional power cable connected to my mains electricity via a conventional 3 pin plug. The coax output gtom the boopster then went to my STB.

Given the fact that they'd be drawing electricity gtom your home, I'd have exp[ected them to explain what it is and why it is there?

I'm wondering if there is a booster in the wall box? If there is then it is very small and I'm not sure why they'd use coax to convey power to it?


Maybe they are power the entire street using your power supply? LOL

 

[ChuckMountain]

I can see no reason why Virgin would ordinarilly connect a coax cable to your mains electricity?

Why not its a compact power supply and allows them to use their existing tools and cables to run as required.

If it is a booster then it's just like a masthead amplifier, that is fed the power through coax.

However, there are a few posts on the VM showing a very similar setup.

In this particular case, it's for converting the incoming Virgin Fibre back to coax.

 

[dante01]

If you say so. It is the first time I've seen this. Makes sense though if it results in a dramatically smaller signal booster than the one they used for my setup.

 

[ChuckMountain]

If you say so. It is the first time I've seen this. Makes sense though if it results in the dramitally smaller signal booster than the one they used for my setup.

Actually no In this case it's not a signal booster, it's just a power supply for the FTTP conversion box.

 

[dante01]

Actually no In this case it's not a signal booster, it's just a power supply for the FTTP conversion box.

So is that within the internal wall box and is that fibre coming into the house?

 

[ChuckMountain]

So is that within the internal wall box and is that fibre coming into the house?

I think what we are seeing on the second photo is just a bit of a splitter\filter that keeps the DC power away from the actual router and then sends it to an external box.

That external box should look something like this, which is the actual media converter and the bottom left lead has Power In Rf In/Out which connected to the internal splitter, getting power from the plug adapter.

 

[dante01]

I wonder how many pets you have to cuddle to power that?


Best get the cat on a tread wheel



and yes, I know it wont being drawing that much power, but that wouldn't be funny would it


The VM engineeer sat in your garden charging his phone isn't funny though!

 

[ChuckMountain]

I wonder how many pets you have to cuddle to power that

1.21 billion of them

 

[ChuckMountain]

I do wonder at what point they will drop the conversion back to coax and just go straight for a ONT equivalent box with RJ45 output.

I wonder if people with these setups still have problems with power levels

 

[dante01]

I'm thinking what can I hook up to my neighbour's power supply?

 

[ChuckMountain]

Or maybe the local lamp post, I am wondering if the local council will notice.

The fact my VM cabinet is wired up to the local lamp post across the street has got unnoticed by them. The only reason why I found out was the Internet for the entire street went off when they replaced the lamp post. The installer wondered what this "extra" cable was doing. Maybe a couple of mining PCs wouldn't go a miss ...

 

[Eric714]

I did a little bit of research,it seems to be a FTTP connection.so it's direct connection to fibre cable.and the second power cable is used to send power to the "omni box" outside the house.power is needed to convert signal from fibre to coax..

here is another link showing similar connection :

Virgin Media FTTP Install - Fibre to the Home

Virgin Media's "Project Lightning" network expansion brings FTTP with their new RFoG network. Here's a look at the install and new fibre equipment...

richardglover.co.uk

 

[Eric714]

The second picture doesn’t look particularly like a fibre converter but just like a normal splitter.

There are 3 cables all going in or out but all look like normal coax cables.

You should be able to unscrew the two screws on the front of the box and then take a photo of the actual splitter.

this is what's inside that socket box:

 

[dante01]

So the isolator and power inserter are integrated into the same compact space.

 

[Eric714]

Is it FTTP ?

 

[ChuckMountain]

Is it FTTP ?

Yes sort of, you have fibre to the property, however Virgin use radio frequency over glass rather than the more traditional fibre approach you would get on openreach or similar providers.

 

[ChuckMountain]

So the isolator and power inserter are integrated into the same compact space.

Yep basically what I said earlier