FTTP Install

Hello!

After a delay of around 7 days my FTTP install is due to be finished this Friday, however I have a few of questions.

The fibre that has been pulled through is likely not long enough to reach round to the other side of my 1st floor flat where I live, will this be a problem? Can the OR engineer extend this further on install day? or does a longer fibre cable need to be pulled through?

Further to this I want the ONT to be in my living room, however the router in another room, what are the chances of OR running an ethernet cable to where that would be placed?

I signed up with BT as they were the most competitive but I'm concerned OR has surveyed the install and not really understood my requirements, given I wasn't in at the time they completed that.

Any advice would as alays be grately appreciated

Edited by AyeUp (Tue 04-Aug-20 19:36:28)

If fibre has already been pulled in to your flat then you *may* get lucky and have an OR installer who is prepared to pull another, new length. But I think you should be prepared for that not to be the case and to live with what they have.

There is no problem with the ONT and router being in different rooms. But the OR installer I had said they did not even carry cat5/6 cable, so was not able to install any. However, both flat and thin cable are easy to find, and quite cheap.

In reply to a post by AyeUp:

Further to this I want the ONT to be in my living room, however the router in another room, what are the chances of OR running an ethernet cable to where that would be placed?

I would assume low, as OR care about the ONT, and as long as there is power and a suitable wall, the fibre connection can be made.

The connection from the ONT to the router ("hub") would be up to the ISP, in your case BT retail, and they don't attend site. That cabling is standard Ethernet, so you should be able to either DIY, or get some help.

There will be an external customer splice point(CSP) fitted on the end of the fibre that has been pulled in.

The installer will discuss and agree a location for the ONT, this should be, ideally, on an outside wall, with two spare power points nearby. An 'inside out' fibre cable will be run through the wall and down to the CSP (to a maximum of 30m) and the ONT brought into service.

Openreach WILL NOT be running any ethernet cabling for you, this is not part of the process the CP pays Openreach for, they do not carry or install it.

If you wish the router to be in a different room to the ONT, supply the cabling yourself prior to the instal date.

In reply to a post by AyeUp:

Further to this I want the ONT to be in my living room, however the router in another room, what are the chances of OR running an ethernet cable to where that would be placed?

As said, zero chance. OR responsibility starts and finishes at the ethernet port on the ONT. That is their demarcation point. Any cabling or gear beyond this point is up to you.

Cat5e or Cat6 will get you where you need to connect up, to a distance of 100m give or take, so generally plenty of scope to position internally.

In reply to a post by Zarjaz:

There will be an external customer splice point(CSP) fitted on the end of the fibre that has been pulled in.

Not always.

In my case my copper line entered my house through ducting into a wiring cupboard in the middle of my house. I had a two stage installation (earlier this year, both with the same OR installer).

On the first visit he pulled fibre from the road-side node into my house using the existing ducting, and left it neatly rolled in a loop. No CSP (unless he put one in the ground off my premises).

On the second visit he stripped back the fibre, added a terminator and connected it to an ONT he installed, and then checked that the BT supplied home hub worked.

He did offer to pin the rolled up fibre to the walls if I wanted the ONT to be installed somewhere else in the house. But was not able to offer the same service for ethernet, as you say.

In reply to a post by PianSomB:

In reply to a post by Zarjaz:

There will be an external customer splice point(CSP) fitted on the end of the fibre that has been pulled in.

Not always.

In my case my copper line entered my house through ducting into a wiring cupboard in the middle of my house. I had a two stage installation (earlier this year, both with the same OR installer).

On the first visit he pulled fibre from the road-side node into my house using the existing ducting, and left it neatly rolled in a loop. No CSP (unless he put one in the ground off my premises).

On the second visit he stripped back the fibre, added a terminator and connected it to an ONT he installed, and then checked that the BT supplied home hub worked.

He did offer to pin the rolled up fibre to the walls if I wanted the ONT to be installed somewhere else in the house. But was not able to offer the same service for ethernet, as you say.

The install process has changed since then. The field fit SC ‘end’ fitted is no longer used, due to some issues with its use.

In reply to a post by Zarjaz:

The install process has changed since then. The field fit SC ‘end’ fitted is no longer used, due to some issues with its use.

Interesting. In fact, mine failed after less than 24 hours and had to be re-done by another engineer.

Out of interest, what would now be done in my case - where existing ducting is in place from a residence to the in-road node? Would a CSP be installed inside the house?

In reply to a post by PianSomB:

In reply to a post by Zarjaz:

The install process has changed since then. The field fit SC ‘end’ fitted is no longer used, due to some issues with its use.

Interesting. In fact, mine failed after less than 24 hours and had to be re-done by another engineer.

Out of interest, what would now be done in my case - where existing ducting is in place from a residence to the in-road node? Would a CSP be installed inside the house?

In a situation like yours, yes.

My install being done on the 12th isn't being done with a CSP.
My cable was pulled through a couple weeks ago and is coiled up on the wall waiting for the internal install.

OpenReach were out today pulling through fibre for another 2 neighbours.
Looks to be the same install method as mine.

The engineer pulling through my cable had never heard of the "inside out install" you mentioned previously or any issues with the field fit SC connector he confirmed will be used on my install.

Fills me with confidence.

Pretty sure I'm going to need a new fibre cable pulled through before they start anything as my entry point is behind a neighbours bench, and today said bench was on top of the coiled up fibre, folding the coil in half.

Hopefully the engineer can (and is willing to) test the cable before pulling it in to the living room only to find out it's completely crushed.

Let the installer know on arrival, they can strip back and check for light before they start.

Not heard of the ‘inside out’ cabling and the new CSP’s bizarre ???

In reply to a post by Zarjaz:

Not heard of the ‘inside out’ cabling and the new CSP’s bizarre ???

Lets hope it isn't wide spread.. The inside out route with csp makes compete sense, especially when the outside part is problematic.

As much as its a box on the outside wall, its designed so that the cables can be repaired or replaced easily, faster and at lower cost. So its worrying that some aren't using it atm.

I wish you were doing my install (when they sort out the halt on the infrastructure) but unfortunately it won't be the case (sorry a "me" moment)

Would it be right to say that having ducting coming up inside people's houses is discouraged due to the potential for gases to make their way inside the house? Every new build I've seen has the duct coming up alongside an external wall and then the standard capping fitted.

Kind of you to say so ....

... in practice however, I’m a crawlingly slow installer, always think “ if this was my place, what would I do ?” I prefer faulting, it makes one think more.

In reply to a post by Zarjaz:

Kind of you to say so ....

... in practice however, I’m a crawlingly slow installer, always think “ if this was my place, what would I do ?” I prefer faulting, it makes one think more.

A method which, i prefer

Thanks guys for the answers.

Picking up on the length of the fibre cable, am I right to understand as someone said a CSP will be fitted or made externally and a futher cable attached to that which will run inside the premise itself?

My concern is that there is only around 10m of fibre cabling rolled up and that won't be long enough to reach the other side of the premise.

On the other hand if you have pre existing ducting coming up inside the house then not using it would make any install way more expensive.

There is a huge range of existing copper wire installs and a one size fits all solution to replacing them is simply not viable. Openreach will have to be flexible and adaptable if they want to retire the copper network.

In reply to a post by jabuzzard:

On the other hand if you have pre existing ducting coming up inside the house then not using it would make any install way more expensive.

There is a huge range of existing copper wire installs and a one size fits all solution to replacing them is simply not viable. Openreach will have to be flexible and adaptable if they want to retire the copper network.

Thats the thing, the copper line in the property is already there, its all underground too. But for some reason they couldn't find the existing duct so had to run new ducting and cabling for the fibre.

Of course.. And the inside out - if done correctly can handle those situations. In theory, once you are on fttp, the chances you wanting fttc, is rare (perhaps for fall back).

In reply to a post by AyeUp:

Thats the thing, the copper line in the property is already there, its all underground too. But for some reason they couldn't find the existing duct so had to run new ducting and cabling for the fibre.

If they have already installed new ducting and pulled cable though then it may be that the 10m length you have is all you are going to get. Though you could try asking them to pull a longer length.

Regarding the question of CSP, you have had different answers on here - some are saying that OR will install an internal CSP and then run new fibre from there to the ONT (in which case you are presumably a happy bunny), and others say that they have/are having installs without a CSP (in which case it seems you have issues).

If you do these have issues then there are two potential solutions:
1 - (preferred) get the ONT installed somewhere where you don't really want it, then run ethernet cable yourself to your optimal location for the router
2 - go to fs.com or a similar site and get a length of fibre extension, and then move the ONT to your preferred location. I have read (on the Ubiquiti forum iirc) that some have found this works for them, though it may not for you (and you may be in technical breach of some T+Cs somewhere, who knows). If you want to go this route let me know and I will go and try to find the link to the person who had success.

For option 2 I am pretty sure it would breach contract - Openreach are responsible for everything up to and including the ONT. No-one should be doing anything with that except for Openreach.

Picking up on the length of the fibre cable, am I right to understand as someone said a CSP will be fitted or made externally and a futher cable attached to that which will run inside the premise itself?

That should be right ... but as has been highlighted on this forum, it seems not all OR staff are ‘up to speed’ on the new techniques.

Had it installed this morning, supplied Nokia ONT and have to say a very tidy installation.

Now what puzzles me is the difference in speeds using BT Smart Hub 2 and my Orbi WIFI. On the former speeds don't go above 490Mb dl with around 50Mb ul. Yet using my Orbi wifi in place of the BT router it reaches the speeds expected around 850Mb dl and 110Mb ul, I wonder what the cause of that is?

I was surprised to see even when connected to ethernet on the satellite of the Orbi achieving in excess of 800Mb dl, I might get away with not needing to run an ethernet cable after all.

SH2 firmware has a bug, there is a fixed version around,

Reset to factory defaults for the SH2 can sometimes clear the problem

In reply to a post by MrSaffron:

Reset to factory defaults for the SH2 can sometimes clear the problem

That was one of the first things I did, doesn't seem to have made a difference. I'll leave it overnight to see if the firmware updates and take it from there.

Has many others had issues with SH2?

In reply to a post by AyeUp:

Has many others had issues with SH2?

Plenty on the BT Forums mate, A decent third party router seems to be the answer until the SH2 gets a fix.

Yep, SH2 stuck at 50Mb up. Using a TP-Link C9. Works fine.

Well if Openreach are going to be picky about where and where not they will put ONT's you can't blame people when they go to fs.com get an APC coupler and length of simplex APC SC fibre and then spend more on the postage (to give you an idea of how cheap this stuff is) and move the ONT to where they want it.

In reply to a post by nicknack101uk:

Yep, SH2 stuck at 50Mb up. Using a TP-Link C9. Works fine.

Yeah that is why I decided to get the MikroTik Tik RB4011iGS+RM, I have had nothing but issues with BT's hubs, no place to report issues with and even the new replacements had the same issues.

My MikroTik router has a huge community and issues get resolved rather quick or a work around is provided until an update is released.

Paul

In reply to a post by jabuzzard:

Well if Openreach are going to be picky about where and where not they will put ONT's you can't blame people when they go to fs.com get an APC coupler and length of simplex APC SC fibre and then spend more on the postage (to give you an idea of how cheap this stuff is) and move the ONT to where they want it.

+1 but you’re pretty tech savvy Most ‘ordinary’ folk would be doing well to identify the name of the connector - might not realise that green is an APC face colour and end up buying the more common blue UPC type...that usually doesn’t end well.

In reply to a post by AyeUp:

Had it installed this morning, supplied Nokia ONT and have to say a very tidy installation.

Now what puzzles me is the difference in speeds using BT Smart Hub 2 and my Orbi WIFI. On the former speeds don't go above 490Mb dl with around 50Mb ul. Yet using my Orbi wifi in place of the BT router it reaches the speeds expected around 850Mb dl and 110Mb ul, I wonder what the cause of that is?

I was surprised to see even when connected to ethernet on the satellite of the Orbi achieving in excess of 800Mb dl, I might get away with not needing to run an ethernet cable after all.

So no internal CSP?

Is your satellite Orbi attached to the main unit by Ethernet? If not, and you are using Wi-fi, then it is very unlikely that you will be able to get 800mbps by connecting to the satellite; I would double check your results

In reply to a post by PianSomB:

In reply to a post by AyeUp:

Had it installed this morning, supplied Nokia ONT and have to say a very tidy installation.

Now what puzzles me is the difference in speeds using BT Smart Hub 2 and my Orbi WIFI. On the former speeds don't go above 490Mb dl with around 50Mb ul. Yet using my Orbi wifi in place of the BT router it reaches the speeds expected around 850Mb dl and 110Mb ul, I wonder what the cause of that is?

I was surprised to see even when connected to ethernet on the satellite of the Orbi achieving in excess of 800Mb dl, I might get away with not needing to run an ethernet cable after all.

So no internal CSP?

Is your satellite Orbi attached to the main unit by Ethernet? If not, and you are using Wi-fi, then it is very unlikely that you will be able to get 800mbps by connecting to the satellite; I would double check your results

The fibre was spliced externally and protected by the grey cover, engineer then fed another cable along the property to my chosen location.

As for speeds on my Orbi, I connected to the ORbi via ethernet and the satellite in turn connects to the router via WIFI backhaul which is about 1.2Gb theoretical. When I run the speedtest connected to satellite I am getting speeds circa 800Mb dl.....I have checked several sites and using different servers, the results are broadly the same. Now when I try a speedtest on WIFI say on my iPhone then yes it doesn't achieve those speeds only around 500Mb.

In reply to a post by AyeUp:

As for speeds on my Orbi, I connected to the ORbi via ethernet and the satellite in turn connects to the router via WIFI backhaul which is about 1.2Gb theoretical. When I run the speedtest connected to satellite I am getting speeds circa 800Mb dl.....I have checked several sites and using different servers, the results are broadly the same. Now when I try a speedtest on WIFI say on my iPhone then yes it doesn't achieve those speeds only around 500Mb.

Very impressive. I had not thought that Wi-fi backhaul had improved so much.

In case you hadn’t spotted it amongst the other bits ...

that was a ‘yes’ but an external CSP that was supplied.