FTTP available I have some questions if you can help please?

Hi all, I wonder if you kind and informed people might be able to help answer a few questions about FTTP installs for me please?

I recently caught up with some engineers outside of our apartment block who advised me that they were running in fibre for BT Openreach.
Within a couple of weeks they were done and each apartment in my block now has a length of fibre terminating in a small, white plastic enclosure just outside of their front doors.
In the mean time I have received a letter from BT Internet (I think it was) advising that FTTP is now serving us and that they are able to accept orders (I currently have GFast with BT Internet).
I have looked inside the enclosure and it appears as though there is a short length of fibre coiled up, terminating with a green connector inside.

Am I right in thinking that if I order FTTP, they will look to put an ONC on the wall just inside the apartment and that the coiled-up length inside will be enough to reach it?
I assume that's their standard plan?

However, my router is in another room so I am considering my options for reaching it.

The engineer will need to drill a hole through from the plastic enclosure just above my front door as there is no other way in to the apartment.
Can I ask him to kindly drill a second hole and pass the fibre through that into the room with the router?

Ideally, the fibre will need to come in through the hole just above the front door, route around a door frame and down to the skirting board, through the second hole and then be routed along the skirting board in the next room to the router.

Based on other people's experiences, is this something he would do for me?
Will he be able to run the fibre around the door frame and along the skirting board, tacking it neatly in the process?

Will the engineer fill any holes which he makes?

Am I right in thinking that the ONC has a single ethernet port?
If so then I guess my other option is to run an ethernet cable around myself but the fibre might be neater as it's thinner.

Do the engineers ever splice lengths of fibre?
If not, will he/she need some kind of interconnection unit just inside the front door to give themselves enough length to run round to the router in the other room?
What do they do if they have excess fibre left at the ONC end?

Sorry for so many questions - I am completely out of touch with FTTP installs.
Thank you for any help.

The ONT can be remote from the router - you can just run your own Cat5e/6 Ethernet cable between them.

As I wrote in another thread on similar topic earlier today, it’s quite likely that Openreach will use a very thin gauge fibre on the inside of your flat called InvisiLight.

This is extremely thin (barely a millimetre in diameter) and is literally glued into placed around skirtings and architraves so as to be almost invisible to see. It also allows additional flexibility in terms of where you ideally would want the ONT to be sited within the flat.

Best to discuss your thoughts regards to ONT siting, cable routes, any through wall penetrations etc with your engineer on the day. They are generally very accommodating.

There are reports that Openreach are now using a somewhat different installation method in apartments (MDUS). This is Invisilight fibre, the box outside your door is the POE unit, very confusing as to me that means Power over Ethernet but it this case it is Point of Entry. They connect a spool of fibre inside the property it is extremely thin and almost invisible and can be glued to skirtings or the ceiling and go round corners and through walls to where you want the ONT to be. Search for Invisilight to find out more about it. I have an FTTP order in progress, it's a bit slow as some digging is need to clear a blocked duct. I wish they could install invisilight for me as the cable entry is at the front of the house (into a toilet!) and my office/computer room is at the back and not easy to get an ethernet cable round doors and corners neatly.

I see @Pheasant has beaten me to it!

Thank you and @Pheasant for both your help!

Very interesting and it would indeed seem that Invisilight is what we have.
My reason for this assumption is that there appear to be several conductors + one fibre inside the same jacket entering the POE.

https://imgur.com/a/NyrdUHW

I see, so the fibre from the POE comes through a hole near the door and terminates in a box with a spool of fibre in it. The engineer then spools off as much as he/she needs so there is no excess to coil up at the far end.
Nice!

What is the benefit to the fibre carrying power in addition to the fibre?
Is it purely to negate the need to plug the ONC into a power socket at the other end?

In reply to a post by VWGolfman:

https://imgur.com/a/NyrdUHW

ahh a micro indoor csp!

There is no power supplied by the fibre, the ONT requires its own supply. The only thing coming from the POE is a fibre connected to the green connector block.

What is one of those?

It’s not a splice point !

It’s a ‘fibre tidy/SC push fit’ point.

In reply to a post by Taras:

In reply to a post by VWGolfman:

https://imgur.com/a/NyrdUHW

ahh a micro indoor csp!

A Compact POE made by Dexgreen.

https://dexgreen.com/collections/ftth-solutions/prod...

In reply to a post by VWGolfman:

My reason for this assumption is that there appear to be several conductors + one fibre inside the same jacket entering the POE.

What is the benefit to the fibre carrying power in addition to the fibre?
Is it purely to negate the need to plug the ONC into a power socket at the other end?

There are several fibre cores (not copper conductors) within that spooled up white cable. It's simply a multicore fibre distribution cable. These are discrete strands of fibre.

For a single dwelling FTTP connection, only one fibre strand / core is required for the connection. The remainder are not needed / spare.

In the middle of that POE enclosure you can see a green coupler - this will eventually mate a matching connector on the left side (called an SC/APC) that will be the end of the single core fibre cable that enters your apartment.

Oh yes - I see it's several fibres and not electrical conductors.

...and one is spliced inside what appears to be something like transparent heat shrink to the blue fibre with the green connector on the end.

Can we be certain that an engineer will plan to use Invisilight inside the apartment?
Is there some way of clarifying this?

...and will he/she always use white sheathed fibre?

Edited by VWGolfman (Sat 19-Apr-25 13:49:33)

In reply to a post by VWGolfman:

Can we be certain that an engineer will plan to use Invisilight inside the apartment?
Is there some way of clarifying this?

...and will he/she always use white sheathed fibre?

I think you are overthinking this but if it bothers you ask your supplier when you place the order.

Yes that entry box style with the mated connector would be used for such an install.

In a regular single dwelling unit domestic installs, Openreach will typically install a CSP which contains a fusion spliced connection that joins the external drop fibre from the street (from the CBT located on a the pole or in an underground chamber) to the internal fibre cable (about 3mm diameter) which has a connector at the other end - the end for the active ONT and a 'raw' end at the CSP. As said for this style of install the internal and external fibres are joined by fusion splicing them together.

Your connection on the other hand, will have a mated connection between the distribution fibre - that you can see already in that POE - mated to your in-apartment InvisiLight cable, which again will have the same SC/APC connector tucked away inside the POE enclosure. Its basically two SC/APC fibre connectors butted up against each other to form the connection.

Hehe I just didn’t want them to use a blue fibre optic on our white skirting boards and coving 🤗

The invisilite will have a white sheathing on it. The blue you refer to is just a thin coating on the fibre itself.

In reply to a post by VWGolfman:

Hehe I just didn’t want them to use a blue fibre optic on our white skirting boards and coving 🤗

Here's a place that sells the stuff. As you can see it's similar Henry Ford and the Model T, you can have any colour you want as long as its white! 😅

https://telecomscentre.co.uk/collections/ofs-invisil...