FTTP install, running the cable behind a wall.

FTTP has just become available to me! Yey!

I'm about to order, although I have a feeling the new lockdown will delay the install, which is fair enough. It's listed as a 1 step install, as the chamber is almost outside my front door.

I don't have any power sockets near where my copper cable enters my home, I have an external NTE, so the first socket is down a short hall, from my front door. So for me it would involve running a cable along the skirting board to where the cable will enter my home, by my front door to where the power sockets are, which is about 3 or 4 meters.

I was thinking to cut some small hole in the wall (it's a dry lined wall so loads of space behind it) and run some string, to where the sockets are, so that the engineer could just pull the cable through the outside wall and then behind the internal wall.

I've done it loads of times before when I installed a wired network.

So I guess my question is, has anyone had any experience with this before when having FTTP installed? Do you think the engineer will be willing to feed the cable behind the wall if I do all the prep work and feed the string?

I know I'm being super fussy, I just really don't like cable being on show!

Edited by deleted (Sun 01-Nov-20 18:53:45)

In short no.

However, if you install some 20/25mm tubing in the void, with no sharp bends, and a pull cord through ... from outside to where you wish the ONT to go inside, then yes.

the guys doing my install were happy for me to run it through the per installed duct under the garden, up the outside wall in corrugated conduit, through the loft (there is probably 20m spare!) and whilst they drank the supplied coffee i pulled the fibre through the stud walls using the preinstalled rope to the cupboard where I had them install the ont

Edited by threelegs (Sun 01-Nov-20 22:42:24)

Currently they are not allowed to drink any tea or coffee supplied by the householder. That's what the engineer who came last week to fix a copper fault told me.

In reply to a post by candlerb:

Currently they are not allowed to drink any tea or coffee supplied by the householder. That's what the engineer who came last week to fix a copper fault told me.

Yep. Makes sense really.

Is there a better location on the outside of the house for bringing the fibre in that could be close to power and where you could place the router? The router doesn't have to be anywhere near the old BT incoming master socket if there is somewhere better. I got them to bring mine straight through my living room wall behind the TV where there is ample power to plug it in to.

No Fig Newtons then! That doesn't sound good.

In reply to a post by ian72:

Is there a better location on the outside of the house for bringing the fibre in

I don't think so, the ExNTE is right next to my front door and I have an open porch around it so there would be no where for the wire to go, the only other room at at the front, is the kitchen, so it would not be practical to run it into there.

Other houses on the estate that don't have ExNTEs, the ducts go into the living room at the back of the house, much easier!

It's just the awkward position of the ExNTE being by my front door rather than the livingroom at the back. It also doesn't help that it's on the side of the door, that if the engineer was to drill through, it would end up in the downstairs toilet, even further away from the power sockets, so I really need the fibre to enter my property on the other side of the door.

There is space underneath the wooden doorstep and gap between doorstep and where the block paving starts, I hope they are willing to put the cable underneath that, I've already tested it I can slot a Cat6 cable through the gap with no problems and then pin it to the wall. It's big enough to fit trunking under too.

So it would just be the case of pulling the cable through the existing duct, under the doorstep and through the wall on the other side, then there is a straight run to the power sockets in the hall along the skirting board.

In reply to a post by candlerb:

Currently they are not allowed to drink any tea or coffee supplied by the householder.

Totally makes sense, no way to bribe them with treats now though!

OpenReach are usually fine with running the fibre along the external wall of the property to the entry point of your choosing (within reason and at ground level).

I believe it's more the pulling fibre through the dry wall to the socket with a string that Zarjaz said would be a likely no.

It would be preferable to have conduit behind the drywall.

I can fit a cable behind the wall but there are metal brackets which would make a conduit difficult, there isn't really the space for that, I managed to go around them when I installed my wired network.

I think going by what Zarjaz said I'll just get over myself and have the cable on the skirting board, I can always cover it with with some trunking to make it less obvious.

As j0hn83, I hope there will be no issues running the cable under the doorstep.

Thanks everyone I'll let you know how I get on, not sure how quick it will be with lockdown stuff.

The current preferred method for FTTP install (although it can vary) is to terminate the external fibre from the duct in a CSP (Customer splice point) which is a small box ( about 16cm x 10cm) attached to the external wall not less than 30cm above ground level where the fibre is required to enter the property. Then the internal fibre cable is pulled from the ONT location to the CSP and the fibre spliced there. The external fibre does not get pulled into the property.

Sorry I missed a step out, I hope the CSP can be fitted after the cable goes under the doorstep and up the wall (as you say about 30 cm) Then it can go into my home and along the hall.

If the cable goes under the doorstep is it then inside the house? I don't think they install a CSP inside a property.

In reply to a post by Realalemadrid:

I don't think they install a CSP inside a property.

Not saying it would be used for this scenario but for your awarness internal CSP's do exist.

In reply to a post by Realalemadrid:

If the cable goes under the doorstep is it then inside the house? I don't think they install a CSP inside a property.

No, this is all external until the CSP.

Fibre pulled through exciting copper cable duct > cable runs along the outside, under the doorstep and up the wall > CSP fitted > cable enters my home and along the hallway about 3 or 4 metres to where the power sockets are > ONT fitted = a happy geek

could the external cable run along the outside further rather than go inside then run along the wall

I would expect the ExNTE to be replaced by a CSP if the existing duct terminates at its location, certainly the CSP replaces the cover at the top of the usual external cable capping from a duct.

In reply to a post by threelegs:

could the external cable run along the outside further rather than go inside then run along the wall

The only sockets that are on the front external wall are in the kitchen, so that wouldn't be practical. I live in a terrace townhouse so no way to route the cable to the back either. The socks in the hall are the only ones I can see being practical to cable to at ground level.

Edited by deleted (Mon 02-Nov-20 16:12:10)

In reply to a post by tdw42:

I would expect the ExNTE to be replaced by a CSP if the existing duct terminates at its location, certainly the CSP replaces the cover at the top of the usual external cable capping from a duct.

That would actually be preferable as it would mean not having two boxes fitted, but the cable would still need to go under the doorstep to be able enter my home on the other side of the door to then run along the hallway, otherwise the engineer would be drilling into a toilet

However, that would mean a couple of meters of internal cable running externally, not sure if they can do that?

Edited by deleted (Mon 02-Nov-20 16:24:09)

Just an idea..

The ONT could be installed anywhere and you run Cat 6 to it's location. The Cat 6 would carry POE which you could use a splitter to step down to the required 5/12v (I'm not sure of the new Nokia ONT voltage).

You are then at your leisure to run the cable. You'll just need a POE switch or injector at the "top end". No mains required at the ONT location.

In reply to a post by Mot:

Just an idea..

The ONT could be installed anywhere and you run Cat 6 to it's location. The Cat 6 would carry POE which you could use a splitter to step down to the required 5/12v (I'm not sure of the new Nokia ONT voltage).

You are then at your leisure to run the cable. You'll just need a POE switch or injector at the "top end". No mains required at the ONT location.

It *could* work but the pragmatics of convincing an OR engineer to install an ONT where there is no standard 13A switched socket outlet would need to be overcome.

It is situations like this where a ONT that could be powered using PoE could solve a multitude of problems over optimal location issues

The ONT is almost certainly within the power budget of basic 802.3af, so you could just run a bit of Cat5e or better still Cat6 to where the ONT will be located back where ever you want the router to be located.

At a guess the ONT just uses a 12V DC power supply with a 2.1mm centre pin positive plug at about 1A, so just about any PoE spliiter with injector or switch would solve any issues around not having mains power where the ONT needs to be situated. Personally I would be of the opinion to have some sort of jerry rigged solution (eg. extension lead) and tell the Openreach engineer that the electrician is due next week to fit the power power socket. Then the moment they have left get my vernier calipers out measure the plug and order an appropriate splitter up.

Let's face it a Mikrotik cAP lite WiFi access point can be powered with either 802.3af/at or 24V passive power over Ethernet and costs £30. It is a disgrace that those responsible in Openreach are so stupidly thick as to not provide it as an option My guess is the person responsible hasn't the faintest clue what PoE even is..

In reply to a post by jabuzzard:

It is a disgrace that those responsible in Openreach are so stupidly thick as to not provide it as an option My guess is the person responsible hasn't the faintest clue what PoE even is..

What Openreach don't provide they don't have to support or replace, if people choose to do this when the Openreach installation engineer leaves is down to them but they (and their family) need to remember that they also need to support it when it goes wrong.

All installed!

The engineer was really good, we discussed where I wanted it and he basically agreed with what I said. I do have the wire running along the skirting board, so I'll buy some trunking to hide it.

He did a very neat job and replaced my xNTE with the CSP so I don't have multiple boxes outside my house

Only issue is once I disconnected my FTTC connection and switched to my google wifi - my full fibre connection has reverted to my FTTC profile, despite switching back to the BT smart hub 2.

BT say I'll have to wait up to midnight for the order to complete

Weird since it was working fine before.

*update* all sorted, I plugged my old router back into my FTTC connection and it switched my FTTP back to 300

Edited by deleted (Tue 10-Nov-20 16:13:08)

In reply to a post by jabuzzard:

It is situations like this where a ONT that could be powered using PoE could solve a multitude of problems over optimal location issues

The ONT is almost certainly within the power budget of basic 802.3af, so you could just run a bit of Cat5e or better still Cat6 to where the ONT will be located back where ever you want the router to be located.

At a guess the ONT just uses a 12V DC power supply with a 2.1mm centre pin positive plug at about 1A, so just about any PoE spliiter with injector or switch would solve any issues around not having mains power where the ONT needs to be situated. Personally I would be of the opinion to have some sort of jerry rigged solution (eg. extension lead) and tell the Openreach engineer that the electrician is due next week to fit the power power socket. Then the moment they have left get my vernier calipers out measure the plug and order an appropriate splitter up.

Let's face it a Mikrotik cAP lite WiFi access point can be powered with either 802.3af/at or 24V passive power over Ethernet and costs £30. It is a disgrace that those responsible in Openreach are so stupidly thick as to not provide it as an option My guess is the person responsible hasn't the faintest clue what PoE even is..

I got myself one of these - https://shorturl.at/oquF2 to do exactly what you say here. Good for 12v 1A.

We are in the midst of an FTTP install across our estate so ran some new ethernet outlets to the wall where they will come in with the fibre (no plug sockets)

Should make for a nice neat install!

Edited by kjwkjw (Tue 10-Nov-20 14:47:13)

In reply to a post by dect:

In reply to a post by jabuzzard:

It is a disgrace that those responsible in Openreach are so stupidly thick as to not provide it as an option My guess is the person responsible hasn't the faintest clue what PoE even is..

What Openreach don't provide they don't have to support or replace, if people choose to do this when the Openreach installation engineer leaves is down to them but they (and their family) need to remember that they also need to support it when it goes wrong.

That is a load of rubbish. Power over Ethernet is an IEEE standard. They manage to support 802.3ab for example (and probably 802.3u and 802.3i) so how come 802.3af is beyond the pale. The ONT probably supports a range of other Ethernet standards, I imagine 802.3ac and a bunch of the 802.1 as well or it would be a useless hunk of junk.

Does your training say anything about installing the ONT next to a fixed power socket or is that something OpenReach don't care about?

It's not a load of rubbish.

It might be an IEEE standard but it isn't standard in the average home.
Any subsequent occupier would likely want an ONT moved to where there is a fixed power socket.
As the ONT is the NTE that would be entirely at OpenReach's expense.

OpenReach might be flexible and not care, but you can't expect them to support something the average home owner doesn't use just because it's an IEEE standard.

In reply to a post by jabuzzard:

In reply to a post by dect:

In reply to a post by jabuzzard:

It is a disgrace that those responsible in Openreach are so stupidly thick as to not provide it as an option My guess is the person responsible hasn't the faintest clue what PoE even is..

What Openreach don't provide they don't have to support or replace, if people choose to do this when the Openreach installation engineer leaves is down to them but they (and their family) need to remember that they also need to support it when it goes wrong.

That is a load of rubbish. Power over Ethernet is an IEEE standard. They manage to support 802.3ab for example (and probably 802.3u and 802.3i) so how come 802.3af is beyond the pale. The ONT probably supports a range of other Ethernet standards, I imagine 802.3ac and a bunch of the 802.1 as well or it would be a useless hunk of junk.

I think as usual you've missed the point entirely, you're so wrapped up quoting different POE standards that you haven't even attempted to understand the point being made about keeping things simple. I think maybe if you worked for a large organisation rather than a university you would understand the complexity of scale.

In reply to a post by dect:

I think maybe if you worked for a large organisation rather than a university you would understand the complexity of scale.

I think you need to start wrapping your head around how large universities are. They are mostly as defined by ONS large organisations. Certainly the one I work for falls into that category.

That's is another bunch of cobblers. Moving an NTE5 is at your own expense not OpenReach's. So why would moving a ONT be at OpenReach's expense?

The reality is there is no earthly reason for it to be OpenReach's problem so the new home owner can either power it with an injector like the last occupants, pay to move the ONT or pay to have a power socket installed.

The chances are if a home owner went for using PoE to power the ONT there is likely going to be a good reason for it and you are highly likely to find a wired connection back to some far more sensible location for a router. Any new owner doing something different is likely to need their head examining.

In reply to a post by jabuzzard:

I think you need to start wrapping your head around how large universities are. They are mostly as defined by ONS large organisations. Certainly the one I work for falls into that category.

Maybe you could also try to get your head around my last employer who has over 400,000 internal devices (excluding BYOD), millions of external customers across every continent and has an IT department of just under 10,000. I suspect after that you may reflect on the true size of your university even if is considered an ONS large organisation.

The point I was trying to make was Openreach don't want to have multiple ways to power their ONT's nor do they want to supply them in blue, pink or black. Other than having serveral manufactures, one size fits all.

Edited by deleted (Thu 12-Nov-20 23:54:44)

I don't think they install a CSP inside a property.

They put my CSP on the chimney stack in the loft, after bringing in the overhead fibre and copper cable (both in one single cable) into the house from the pole outside. This replaced the old copper one which also came through the loft to the master (copper) socket which is also up there. He used the old cable to pull in the fibre I think. The ONT is installed in a cupboard on the upstairs landing underneath. I'd put some ducting conduit to make it easy for them to reach that.

It was a FTTPoD install so perhaps they are a bit more accommodating for this. But the engineer installing it all said it was an easy job for him, and he would have done it for any customer.

It was good because I didn't want fibre trailing down the wall to a CSP, and back up again, but I didn't tell them that.

Edited by shaunhw (Mon 07-Dec-20 15:26:42)

I would not have expected it to be particularly expensive to put in an extra power socket on a plasterboard wall, probably a spur off an existing ring main. Before regulations were tightened, I used to do this myself, particularly if there was already a socket on the other side of the wall. This might also avoid problems when you need to sell the house in the future, and the buyer wishes to use wifi only and does not want to bother with ethernet circuitry. ( I do use a mixture of wifi and ethernet circuitry for the household electronics.)

In reply to a post by dect:

Maybe you could also try to get your head around my last employer who has over 400,000 internal devices (excluding BYOD), millions of external customers across every continent and has an IT department of just under 10,000. I suspect after that you may reflect on the true size of your university even if is considered an ONS large organisation.

You are engaging in a pi$$ing contest. My University has over 60.000 devices in the IPAM, and hundreds of IT support staff. That is not small by any stretch of the imagination. Just because your previous employer was larger does not make my current employer small. Once you are managing 50,000 devices you might as well be managing 100,000 or 400,000 it's meh.

The point I was trying to make was Openreach don't want to have multiple ways to power their ONT's nor do they want to supply them in blue, pink or black. Other than having serveral manufactures, one size fits all.

And the point I was making that it is fricking trivial to have an ONT that can be powered from an external PSU OR or via PoE. Mikrotik can manage it in a sub £25 WiFi access point so it's perfectly possible to do, and the idea that it complicates things is laughable in the extreme.

Trying to bend every install so they have to have a power socket where the ONT is located is fine for a new build. It is not fine for retrofitting millions of houses where hundreds of thousands will not have a power socket in a suitable location. Frankly the fact the ONT does not fitn a 47mm deep double socket with fibre and ethernet connected from behind is a retrograde step IMHO.

In reply to a post by jabuzzard:

Just because your previous employer was larger does not make my current employer small.

Relatively it makes your university smaller than small. Quoting how many devices in IPAM is funny too as I am guessing the vast majority of the ones that still actually exist will be BYOD and not university assets.

In reply to a post by dect:

In reply to a post by jabuzzard:

Just because your previous employer was larger does not make my current employer small.

Relatively it makes your university smaller than small. Quoting how many devices in IPAM is funny too as I am guessing the vast majority of the ones that still actually exist will be BYOD and not university assets.

Your like the idiot who thought that earning £80k did not put you in the top 5% LOL.

Any you would be guessing wrong, not a single BYOD will be in the IPAM. A BYOD device will connect through Eduroam and thus is not actually registered in advance. Oh and most things actually exist because most devices actually have a full public IPv4 address which means address of old devices are regularly recycled. They did move mobile devices onto a private address space last year, but prior to that even my phone would get a proper public IPv4 address. The university has a couple of class B networks for reference.