Looking at your photo..If I was doing that.
I would take say 3"/75mm of the tarmac up near the wall (try to not hit the gas pipe) and two small slabs the other side of the chimney base and bury and length of flexible conduit (with a draw rope), I would take one end up to were the fibre will come out the BT duct and the other end protruding out of the ground in the chimney/wall corner.
The fibre could be run up to the place you want it.
An airing cupboard is not ideal if it gets hot in there.
Remember you need a mains socket to power the ONT.

Edited by APTMAN (Tue 16-Aug-22 14:18:59)

In reply to a post by uniquorn:

My ask was in the context of planning to have the engineer run cabling as depicted in red:
https://pasteboard.co/vG7mmf4DsjEf.png

There are some good fibre engineers on here who may be willing to give you their verdict on those external fibre cable runs, I suspect with the latest flat cable it could be a PITA.

In reply to a post by uniquorn:

My intention was to ask the engineer to install the ONT in an upstairs airing cupboard which also houses my patch panel, LAN switching, and router (the current FTTC modem being located in that downstairs front room with the NTE5 socket.)

Are you saying you already have power for the FTTC modem in the downstairs front room? And you already have CAT5e ethernet from this modem to the router upstairs?

If that's true, then I'd just put the ONT where the FTTC modem is, and connect it to the router in exactly the same way as your FTTC modem does today.

*Way* less hassle altogether, and much less unsightly on the front of the house.

Yes currently the FTTC modem is downstairs, where the existing copper enters the building. There is cat6 structured cabling which takes this to my router upstairs in the airing cupboard.

The issue is that decorative wood panelling has now been installed downstairs - this is affixed to battens which in turn are affixed to the internal wall such that there is a void between the panelling and the wall.

I had assumed OR will not install an ONT onto this kind of stud panelling - though, perhaps I was wrong?

Given suitable fixings I don't see why not (plasterboard fixings perhaps?). The ONT is extremely small and lightweight. If they can find a point to screw through the panelling to the batten, so much the better.

A bit of care will be required drilling through the wall for the fibre, that's all.

Is the master socket directly mounted to the wall, i.e. the panelling was cut out around it? Ditto for the power socket?

Yes during the panelling installation the joiner was able to create a accurate cut-out for the existing NTE5 plate. Also did the same the adjacent sockets which were refitted with a new back box flush on the panelling.

Though, from the pictures I've seen, I don't think even and accurate cut-out for the ONT would work because unlike the NTE5 plate, cables protrude from the bottom rather than the face - and the stud nature of the panelling would likely make this a problem.

I'll keep fingers crossed that the OR Engineer doesn't see any issues with mounting on the panelling itself - it is smooth MDF and quite solid.

ONT should be surface mounted - don’t recess it for the reasons you’ve outlined. There is virtually no weight to an ONT, so the fixings don’t need to penetrate into the studwork, fixing just to the paneling would be totally sufficient. 10mm thickness ample meat.

Just ensure you have a socket nearby (technically within a metre of the ONT location. As long as the engineer can feed the cable back through to where the CSP is located you should be fine. Existing Cat6 link can then be used to connect your ONT to your router and rest of network.