FTTP

I'm moving soon and have ordered FTTP to the new house which was built 2008. The phone line is all underground and the master socket is in the lounge fed from below by ducting already installed

Quick question-having read detail on the install - why is a CSP at all necessary on an outside wall if BT can feed the new fibre the whole way through existing copper ducting to the master socket

This would avoid the need to drill a hole and feed fibre afresh from an external CSP to the the ONT and the resulting cabling around skirting to get to the beside master socket where I want the ONT to be

Edited by alanb2001 (Sun 09-Jan-22 18:07:51)

The CSP usually replaces the top cover of the external feed in. On a modern new build it shouldn't require any drilling. The fibre should enter the property using the same hole the existing copper feed uses.

It's irrelevant whether a CSP is used or not when it comes to getting fibre along skirting boards. In both cases the feed should enter at the same point and terminate at the same place in your living room.

A CSP is necessary because that's the deployment method Openreach have chosen. It allows them to do much of the work without the homeowner/occupier being present. It means if there's any issues with the incoming feed then the whole drop cable doesn't need replaced.

When using a CSP the internal fibre is pre terminated.
When using a connectorised drop cable without a CSP the engineer needs to attach a field fit connector at the ONT end of the fibre cable. These aren't as reliable and have a higher failure rate. Splicing the fibre with a pre terminated connector is more robust.

thats great - thanks for clarifying- basically I will have a CSP still but routed from there along existing copper ducting so no need for drilling a new hole

My BT duct comes into an enclosed porch into my equipment cupboard, there is fitted the CSP .
Remember you will need two 13A sockets, one for the ONT and one for your router.

A neat install done correctly will replace the outside capping:
as seen here
with a CSP and should hopefully look
something like this.

It doesn't always look that neat and for some reason some engineers choose to drill a new hole and offset the CSP
Looking something like this

ive a partial buried in ground cable, they dug into my garden to find the duct, brought the fibre up the duct then put a new microduct under my grass and into my house and fitted an internal CSP. Loads of options

Its quite funny seeing those previous copper points sticking out the wall so much, the guys that did the copper install round here drilled a small brick sized hole only covered directly by the duct capping, no mastic literally like an outdoor knockout box straight through into the living room, so from outside you can rewire the inside of the master socket, not sure it's meant to be that way but everyone round here has it.

We also seem to have a load of internal wires that go directly via the inside through ducting that goes to the knockout box outside where the OR external capping covers. (seems a bit bodged to me)

example of the type of external capping in the Openreach-Fibre-Handbook on page 15

If you really object to the CSP you can have an internal one fitted, which is white and a lot smaller. But you will need to have one or the other.

As mentioned by another poster, it needs to have the external cable spliced to a pre-terminated internal cable. The field fit connectors are a thing of the past, due to the high failure rate.

I think its worth making clear that the existing copper service is most probably ducted to the outside wall of the property and not all the way to the master socket so this ducting will be reused for the fibre service and a CSP will be fitted where the fibre comes out of the duct on that outside wall but there will still be a need to run the fibre internally from the CSP to where you want the ONT (most likely around skirting boards) unless their is an accessible internal conduit in place that goes between the two points.

Edited by deleted (Mon 10-Jan-22 10:51:06)

yes - thank you- i guess the bt engineer can assess this when he visits and we discuss how to bring the fibre cable in - would be handy if there was ducting to the master socket - it is on an internal wall coming from beneath so possibly ducting rather than just the bare wires ?