FTTP - siting of external box and ONT

If / when I go FTTP, am i going to have issues with siting of external box and ONT ?
I am assuming the fibre arrives at my house along the same route as current copper (underground from pavement to front wall of my house).
My Fritz router and master socket are currently in a first floor room (along with desktop PC) - I assume the ONT will be installed in the same room.
I don't know where the external box will be - down at ground level / at first floor level where the ONT will be ??
Any comments ?

Is there some reason why your current 'copper' connection location is relevant to your new fibre link ? Eventually the PSTN network will be switched off irrespective of whether you take a Digital service.

My line from Zen/Openreach is about 40 feet from the original British Telecom line (dates back to 1965) but I still have the same number.

Personally I'd say work with the contractor to get the best outcome for both parties. I would make a point of having as little of the fibre visible from outside your property for security reasons - phones, alarms etc.

Openreach disconnected my ADSL almost instantly once the ONT came on line and then the phones started working from the Fritzbox a couple of days later - it took a few more days to get it up to 900MB while Openreach tweaked their provisioning.

A couple of months later, I removed the master socket completely as it was as dead as dodo!

I (perhaps naively) assumed that the fibre line would follow the same path as the copper - let's see what the install people say.

If your existing phone cable is underground and fed through a duct it is highly likely that the fibre will use the same route.
The external box ( CSP) is normally mounted near ground level and the ONT fitted on the inside wall behind it,
I wouldn't assume that the ONT will be fitted near your phone master socket. It's rare for the CSP to be mounted at first floor level, using the fibre splicer is difficult when up a ladder.

I think old copper runs vary completely in how they get to your property and when they were done. Although we had a duct under the pavement, Openreach had to put a new one in because it was blocked.

The copper cables from the duct were just buried in the run to the house, the fibre patch lead uses the same technique but originates from the new duct and was routed about 90 feet across the garden and maybe 10 feet under block paving, using a slit trench.They have left a blue marker on the pavement at the take off point to each house.

I think it would be prohibitably expensive to actually put a new dedicated duct from the road duct, to to serve a single home unless there were multiple lines homes in the same building.

But if theres one present, I'm sure they will use it (if it suits both parties).

I don't really understand why they do a splice. I asked them why they couldn't just push the fly lead directly into the ONT - they do the equivalent at the other end. I didn't get a technically coherent response from them!

An internal cable is much more likely to get damaged by people knocking the ONT off the wall, taking it down to decorate etc. Having a convenient location where a joint is made and protected, and where a couple of metres of slack can be stored is very useful.

Still not really buying it - sorry.

Theres still a couple of inches of fibre exposed where it comes through the wall before it goes into the ONT where bad things could happen (if you are stupid) - it could have been a continuous fly (which is more robust). You could bury a couple of spare metres of slack in a loop outside and locate it securely with a clip to the wall. Would have saved costs and time (a splicer's visit). TBH I don't really think it's a good idea to have unnecessary joints in any cable.

Both Openreach and Zen have asked me to disconnect it when we were having initial problems - it wasn't difficult to do! I seem to recall doing a soft reboot of the OTN was harder challenge.

But I think there is a high degree of variety of these installations!

If the final drop cable were fitted with connectors at both ends the cable would be more difficult to install, it would certainly need larger diameter holes through the wall and could more easily get jammed on obstructions when being fed through ducting, and unless Openreach had a huge range of lengths which every installer carried you could easily end up with a large coil of excess cable to deal with.

The original connectorised drop cable was only fitted with a plug for the CBT end, the outer black sheath could be stripped back to expose a smaller diameter white sheath suitable for routing inside the premises, and used a field-fit SC/APC plug. This only required a cleaver, scissors and a stripper rather than a fusion splicer but IIRC there were multiple issues with failures of the plug, difficulty stripping back the outer sheath and having to replace the entire drop cable if there was any damage.

That method was replaced by the current method with an external connectorised drop cable, again only fitted with a plug for the CBT for the CBT end, together with an internal connectorised cable fitted with a plug for the ONT connected together at a CSP.

Openreach wouldn't have changed their processes unless the new one is more cost-effective - remember this will factor in repair visits and stock costs, not just the initial installation.

Every FTTP provider in the UK that I can think of installs a box outside the house and makes the joint there - it's far less disruptive and less time consuming to mount a box and splice a fibre than your suggestion of digging a hole to hide slack in.

If there was a better approach I am sure one of the AltNets would have started using it.

A fibre splice isn't really a join in the sense of something connectorised that can fail or contaminants can get into, when done properly and protected with proper splice management there is no performance difference between that and a continuous piece of fibre. A connector that has been dragged through a wall is far more likely to cause reliability issues than a splice.

Thanks for the explanation - it's the most convincing one I have heard by far. Yes its only the thin white inner sheath that pops through internal wall totally unsupported or protected and bent through a tighter radius than I would have chosen! But strangely its much thicker a bit of black fibre that goes through the external wall which they reckon they had just spliced onto the end of the fly lead.

Oh the endless hours of watching the Openreach team through the pandemic. They'd first ones would arrive by 9am and they seemed to get a quorum usually by 10ish. Then they would all huddle round their devices (looked a bit like an iPad) and have a team brief, followed by a smoko behind their vans (either that or they were electing a new pope). By 12 it was lunch hour and by 3, they had all completely disappeared!

It went on for weeks, no months - they were only hooking on 20 houses.

But it works well and has caused me no problems for 19 months.

In reply to a post by Sean_123:

Yes its only the thin white inner sheath that pops through internal wall totally unsupported or protected and bent through a tighter radius than I would have chosen! But strangely its much thicker a bit of black fibre that goes through the external wall which they reckon they had just spliced onto the end of the fly lead.

That's an inside-out cable, the black jacket is stripped off to provide the required length of internal cable

https://dexgreen.com/products/fiber-optic-inside-out...

Assuming the CSP is at ground level, any reason why they can't run cable outside the house up to first floor level and have ONT inside at first floor level ?

I think we can ignore master phone sockets, as we'll be moving to Digital Voice.

In reply to a post by savamac:

Assuming the CSP is at ground level, any reason why they can't run cable outside the house up to first floor level and have ONT inside at first floor level ?

Usually the installers are fairly obliging and will try to fit the ONT where you want so long as it doesn't cause them too much extra work . My splice point is near ground level in the open front porch, the 'internal' fibre then goes up through the ceiling of the prch and runs under the floorboards of my bedroom to the cupboard at the top of the stairs (I had strategically placed floorboards loose anyway so it was easier for the installer than tacking it all around the skirting board which is what they are supposed to do)..

Conduit is really cheap - if people have specific cable routes they would like to be used then it's either a DIY project or something that a home automation / network / TV aerial installer can do - or an electrician could deploy an apprentice on rather than paying electrician rates to install containment.

I've never had Openreach or Hyperoptic object to using existing containment - it makes their life easier if a job that was going to be drilling holes and stapling cable can be turned into one where they tape a cable onto a string and pull it, and it future proofs the whole thing.

As you know every installation is different, I was assuming that a ducted incoming cable is a good route for a fibre upgrade if it is not blocked. As you have experienced a blocked duct or cables buried in the ground is a different kettle of fish. Openreach must have spent a small fortune for your 90 feet of trench and a length of block paving, requiring reinstatement, if that was just for your house you can consider yourself very lucky.

In reply to a post by Sean_123:

The copper cables from the duct were just buried in the run to the house, the fibre patch lead uses the same technique but originates from the new duct and was routed about 90 feet across the garden and maybe 10 feet under block paving, using a slit trench.

10 feet under ? That's the depth of 400kV national grid cables are buried, not a poxy domestic feed fibre !

The grass was just a slit trench which maybe took an hour (two tops). The block paving took a couple of hours to lift and re-lay (they did a good job).

The actual pavement duct took an hour to cut and dig across the front of the property - they used a rotary cutter and a mini digger. I can't remember how long it took to put back but it wasn't a huge amount of time.

It certainly took far longer to install the new CBT chamber which is in front of the house next door which required a far bigger deeper hole with gas, electricity, water, sewage and the existing phone services for them to work around. They didn't drop the ball!

I reckon they were doing about 3 pavement to property installs per day once they got going, no doubt spurred on by Freedom Fibre starting an aggressive overbuild campaign.

Just seen the latest post - no the block paving width is 10 foot - it's certainly not buried 10 foot deep! It's just under the block paving!

Edited by Sean_123 (Fri 31-Mar-23 20:49:58)

Not read the whole thread, but ….

External splice point where the current UG feed comes out of the duct. Cable up the wall, through, then ONT on the wall there next to a fixed power outlet.

In reply to a post by jpm:

Every FTTP provider in the UK that I can think of installs a box outside the house and makes the joint there - it's far less disruptive and less time consuming to mount a box and splice a fibre than your suggestion of digging a hole to hide slack in.

If there was a better approach I am sure one of the AltNets would have started using it.

A fibre splice isn't really a join in the sense of something connectorised that can fail or contaminants can get into, when done properly and protected with proper splice management there is no performance difference between that and a continuous piece of fibre. A connector that has been dragged through a wall is far more likely to cause reliability issues than a splice.

In my experience with City Fibre (for Zen), the installers don't splice the cable, they use pre-made cables. My run is about 20m but the pre-made cable issued is 25m so I have 5m coiled and pinned to the outside wall. I think the shorter lengths issued to the installers are something like 5m and 15m.
(And a fibre was blown through a micro duct installed in the BT duct. The installers were pleased that they didn't have to do anything with the block paving on the drive. I've since thought of a better place for locating the ONT, which would have required a shorter cable and been easier to install. Has anyone had an ONT moved?)

In reply to a post by Sean_123:

Thanks for the explanation - it's the most convincing one I have heard by far.

A second reason is some installs end up being 2 stages. They might do the inside or outside first, do the other later. Especially if they run into a problem at either stage, it means they wont need to enter the property on both visits.

Although I do think needing only a much smaller hole in the wall is a big reason too. Its both neater and easier for the engineer and customer.

We recently had Brsk fttp installed. I had expected the fibre to follow the same path as the existing (but unused for years) copper phone wire. Brsk use Openreach ducts and poles.

When the engineer arrived, he said it can't go that way because the phone wire goes between the branches of a tree.

Luckily, it was possible to find a path from the same pole to the eaves that bypassed the tree.
The fibre comes in through an existing hole, which was previously used by a TV aerial cable (which we had removed some time ago).

I think there is a splice where the fibre meets the house. I'm not sure why, but it certainly seems to work well enough. It's supposed to be 500mb/s but it tests at about 535 each way on speedtest.net.

The ONT is a fairly neat box, though it has four green LEDs lit. Why is it that everythng has to twinkle nowadays?

Edited by hoopla (Tue 18-Apr-23 14:49:05)