Broadband and telephones

[Diver Fred]

I need to speak to a fitter before they come as like you I have stuff that I need o do first and have 2 or 3 potions as per the route. I am expecting none of it to go smoothly. They keep sending me a date (same date) and will not engage with me unless I accept the date. So I have agreed a date and got to speak to someone but not a fitter it was just someone who is the call centre who said they dont do that, I keep telling them that unless I speak to a fitter first then they will arrive and will not be able to do it because I will not of done the work.

if you have prep work to for the shift to FTTP do it ASAP. When I agreed to the move to FTTP (at No Cost!) We agreed dates... The f***ing idiots turned and did the external fit 3 weeks early and turned up to to do the internal work the following week when we were still on holiday. I really was p****ed off as I needed the external connection box in a different location so I could disrupt the entry route for ants. After giving them some choice 'earhole they agreed they had been premature in doing the work, their excuse being they thought I be pleased to have FTTP sooner.
For the internal fit I wanted all the kit in the utility storage area so I had to lift a floor board or two (and I drilled the hole in the wall). The chaps were pleased I'd done the prep work them.

 

[Harry Bloomfield]

if you have prep work to for the shift to FTTP do it ASAP. When I agreed to the move to FTTP (at No Cost!) We agreed dates... The f***ing idiots turned and did the external fit 3 weeks early and turned up to to do the internal work the following week when we were still on holiday. I really was p****ed off as I needed the external connection box in a different location so I could disrupt the entry route for ants. After giving them some choice 'earhole they agreed they had been premature in doing the work, their excuse being they thought I be pleased to have FTTP sooner.

I was messaged to say, a responsible person, over 18, would need to be onsite during the work, and the entire job was done in a single visit.

 

[aveatry]

Can the ONT internal box be fitted near to a gas meter - its the non smart type if that makes a difference.
The meter cupboard is inside the house and is divided by a single thickness brick wall with gas one side and electric the other. The problem is that there is not a lot of room in the electric section to fit it.

 

[Harry Bloomfield]

It goes - pole/or via the ground > termination > ONT > Router.

The termination is a fibre to fibre joint, which needs special equipment to line up and fuse the fibres and needs to be done at ground, or floor level. It just joins the outdoor fibre, to the indoor more delicate fibre. It can be indoors or outdoors, and needs no power.

The ONT, needs power, and translates from the fibre, to your indoor network connection.

The router also needs power, and takes in the WAN network, to you wifi and home network/LAN.

My ONT at a guess is around 6" tall 5" wide, 3/4" deep.

 

[aveatry]

It goes - pole/or via the ground > termination > ONT > Router.

The termination is a fibre to fibre joint, which needs special equipment to line up and fuse the fibres and needs to be done at ground, or floor level. It just joins the outdoor fibre, to the indoor more delicate fibre. It can be indoors or outdoors, and needs no power.

The ONT, needs power, and translates from the fibre, to your indoor network connection.

The router also needs power, and takes in the WAN network, to you wifi and home network/LAN.

My ONT at a guess is around 6" tall 5" wide, 3/4" deep.

Thanks - I knew all of that bit, was asking for the size - so thank you for that and also if it can be fitted next to a gas meter. I have since found the size of the city fibre ONT - here
https://support.aa.net.uk/CityFibre_ONT
Actually the size on the info page does not make any sense --
The ONT is a 'Calix 801G GigaPoint v2' device and measures 10.16 x 2.07 x 3.25cm (WxHxD).

 

[Harry Bloomfield]

For the first week or so, speed tests showed YF were providing a little over the 150Mbps I was paying for, but over recent days, that proved to be quite variable - often as low as 2Mbps. I emailed the guy with whom I had originally discussed having YouFibre, got no response at all, then in desperation emailed their complaints email address, supplying name, address, and details of my package. Soon after, I got a reply, asking me to supply my name, address, and details of my package, so again I repeated the details. I must say I was becoming quite frustrated with YF, as it seemed rather chaotic. Why don't they use customer reference numbers?

At 23:21, yesterday evening, long after I had retired, they replied saying an engineer would be here, this afternoon, and the ONT seemed to be faulty.

Two engineers turned up at 13.30, and very quickly found the issue. Red light was flooding out of the joint, between the external fibre, and the short piece of internal fibre, leading to the ONT.

Thinking back - the original engineer, had made one joint, declared it no good, tried second time, declared that good, then declared the ONT dead, and replaced that.

The two today, seemed quite surprised it had even worked at all.

 

[aveatry]

I share your frustrations with these companies

 

[aveatry]

Once my fibre is connected from the pole across the street I will be left with 2 cables attached to my house and inside to the bt box, how do i get that removed if city fibre are not allowed to touch bt stuff. Not too bothered about internal as I can deal with that but its the overhead not needed.
maybe it could fall off my house in the wind - the eye bolt in my wall with the twisted tension wire looks like its falling out - your honer. and I will then have to call open reach to make it safe at the pole or will city fibre remove it all anyway. It so happends the best place for the new fibre is right where the copper one is on my house wall.

 

[Harry Bloomfield]

maybe it could fall off my house in the wind - the eye bolt in my wall with the twisted tension wire looks like its falling out - your honer. and I will then have to call open reach to make it safe at the pole or will city fibre remove it all anyway. It so happends the best place for the new fibre is right where the copper one is on my house wall.

That is my plan, for next summer, no hurry. The old copper, attaches to one of those curly-whirly strainers, at my end, which I moved and fixed decades ago, when I moved the line, to a better location. I'll just cut the line, at my end, when the road is quiet, and no risk of traffic, Then cut it again, at the base of the pole, so there is just enough length to lash it at height, then forget about it. I'll not even bother reporting it to OR, they will be along eventually anyway, removing and recovering all the copper.

Internally, I have slave sockets in most rooms, so all I did when my number was ported, was to unplug my internal wiring from the old master socket, and plug them into the new router. I put all the slaves in, back in the 80's, for convenience, before wireless phone appeared. Now we just use one socket, in the bedroom, with one wireless base plugged into it, and four remote wireless phones, scattered round the place.

 

[Mottie]

On the same subject, I’m having my fibre installed on Dec 10th but we have no telephone poles in our street. We did have cable about 20 years ago (NTL) and I seem to remember they used a moling machine to get to the house from the street, going under our lawn. We no longer have a lawn, it’s been replaced with a drive with a pretty substantial reinforced concrete slab that I fitted myself (the slab, not the surface pavers). I’ve just had a look outside. We have one 'normal' phone line connection box and one cable connection box. Whether they can use the existing cable remains to be seen.

All done. The Openreach engineer couldn’t use the old NTL cable as that was copper but he did find an access duct from the street. He ran the new fibre cable to a box in the middle of my house and next door. He tells me there are 4 lines in the cable but next door are having fibre fitted too which will leave 2 spare lines. He said the speed can fluctuate for up to 10 days before it settles. I've gone from 39 Mbps to 92 but he says I should be hitting 120 plus when it settles down.

 

[aveatry]

All done. The Openreach engineer couldn’t use the old NTL cable as that was copper but he did find an access duct from the street. He ran the new fibre cable to a box in the middle of my house and next door. He tells me there are 4 lines in the cable but next door are having fibre fitted too which will leave 2 spare lines. He said the speed can fluctuate for up to 10 days before it settles. I've gone from 39 Mbps to 92 but he says I should be hitting 120 plus when it settles down.

I am sitting here waiting for my afternoon slot, mine is from a post across the street, I just hope they do not have a melt down about getting ladders over a 30inch deep canopy that is in the way of my preferred position. Unless they can call in a van cherry picker

 

[Harry Bloomfield]

All done. The Openreach engineer couldn’t use the old NTL cable as that was copper but he did find an access duct from the street. He ran the new fibre cable to a box in the middle of my house and next door. He tells me there are 4 lines in the cable but next door are having fibre fitted too which will leave 2 spare lines. He said the speed can fluctuate for up to 10 days before it settles. I've gone from 39 Mbps to 92 but he says I should be hitting 120 plus when it settles down.

That sounds confused. Are you sure you are on fibre, not cable? There are no 'lines' in cable, as such, it's VoIP and so far as I can tell, the number of lines, is only limited by the data capacity of the fibre.

Fibre doesn't fluctuate, and settle, it's full speed from installation. Mine was fluctuating, but only due to a fault.

 

[aveatry]

That sounds confused. Are you sure you are on fibre, not cable? There are no 'lines' in cable, as such, it's VoIP and so far as I can tell, the number of lines, is only limited by the data capacity of the fibre.

Fibre doesn't fluctuate, and settle, it's full speed from installation. Mine was fluctuating, but only due to a fault.

I took it that fibre only needs 1 bit of fibre -- er fibre and the other one of the 2 will be for his neighbour

 

[Harry Bloomfield]

I am sitting here waiting for my afternoon slot, mine is from a post across the street, I just hope they do not have a melt down about getting ladders over a 30inch deep canopy that is in the way of my preferred position. Unless they can call in a van cherry picker

Which ISP?

 

[Harry Bloomfield]

I took it that fibre only needs 1 bit of fibre -- er fibre and the other one of the 2 will be for his neighbour

It is one fibre, per 'line', or customer. I have a bit of the outdoor fibre, which was cut off as surplus, in the loft. I'll have a closer look at it, next time I venture up there.