This topic

Full Fibre 900. Apparently I can now get it, but not sure what's involved

SuperFlyGuy — Mon, 28 Sep 2020 10:37:50 GMT

Hi Folks,

I'm out of contract with BT and thought I'd check what deals there might be on our broadband. I noticed that my address is now eligible for Full Fibre 900 (although the download speed is quoted as 450MB).

I've seen CASS contractors in our neighbouring roads over the last month or so and assume that they were laying fibre option cables.

My questions are;

1. They haven't run cabling up to my house (or not that I'm aware of). If I sign up for Full Fibre, what is actually involved? Do they need to somehow run the last bit of fibre into our house and if so, what would this involve? We have a tarmac drive and unless they can run the cable through the existing ducting used by the copper wire where it enters the house, I fear that they'd need to start digging up our lawn or start running cables across the front of the house.

2. I already have a Smart Hub 2 with wi-fi disc, but our router is upstairs in our office as we use 2 wired desktop machines most of the time. When I had our Internest installed, BT ran a "data cable" from the box in the hall, up the stairs and into our office. This effectively gave us another extension into which the hub is plugged in. Would I still be able to keep this set up, i.e., keep the Smart Hub upstairs but still be able to harness the Full Fibre speed? What I don't want to do is to have to move the hub into the hall and then try and run ethernet cable up into our office.

Any help or guidance anyone could give would be appreciated. I did ring 150, but I guess BT are busy at the moment so hung up after about 15 minutes.

Many Thanks

Re: Full Fibre 900. Apparently I can now get it, but not sure what's involved

licquorice — Mon, 28 Sep 2020 10:39:20 GMT

Full fibre 900 will require a fibre cable to enter your house and terminate on an Openreach ONT (a fibre modem). How that arrives at your property depends on a number of factors. The connection between the ONT and your hub requires an Ethernet cable rather than the data extension cable to another phone socket.

Re: Full Fibre 900. Apparently I can now get it, but not sure what's involved

SuperFlyGuy — Mon, 28 Sep 2020 11:08:22 GMT

Many thanks for the quick response.

Do BT/Openreach cover the cost of bringing the fibre optic cable into the property? Are they able to re-use the existing ducting that brings the copper cable into our hallway?

Presumably, I'd be responsible for running an Ethernet cable from the ONT any hub, i.e., I could just purchase a long cable and run it alongside the data cable that was fitted when we first had our Broadband installed?

Re: Full Fibre 900. Apparently I can now get it, but not sure what's involved

CJT80 — Mon, 28 Sep 2020 11:22:12 GMT

@SuperFlyGuywrote:
Many thanks for the quick response.
Do BT/Openreach cover the cost of bringing the fibre optic cable into the property? Are they able to re-use the existing ducting that brings the copper cable into our hallway?
Presumably, I'd be responsible for running an Ethernet cable from the ONT any hub, i.e., I could just purchase a long cable and run it alongside the data cable that was fitted when we first had our Broadband installed?

1: Yes they do, it's then covered by your rental.

2: Do you have a picture of the "data cable" they installed?

Re: Full Fibre 900. Apparently I can now get it, but not sure what's involved

SuperFlyGuy — Mon, 28 Sep 2020 12:20:01 GMT

Hi CJT80,

I don't have a picture, but I believe it's just a telephone extension cable, so not Ethernet. Running an Ethernet cable into the office wouldn't be an issue once the ONT is installed in the hallway.

I'm more concerned about how the fibre cable gets into the house. Our front door (and current plastic cover that houses the copper cable) is in the centre of our driveway if that makes sense (tarmac driveway either side of the front door), so unless BT/Openreach can bring the new fibre optic cable through the same ducting, I'm not sure how they will be able to run the cable from the street, across our property.

Regards

Re: Full Fibre 900. Apparently I can now get it, but not sure what's involved

pippincp — Mon, 28 Sep 2020 12:25:34 GMT

You could always ask the engineer if he'll install the ONT in the office. The FTTP engineers are a helpful bunch.

Re: Full Fibre 900. Apparently I can now get it, but not sure what's involved

SuperFlyGuy — Mon, 28 Sep 2020 19:28:30 GMT

Thanks to everyone who's replied.

I bit the bullet tonight and I've ordered the Full Fibre 900 Halo 2 package. I rang and spoke to a very helpful person who put my mind at ease about running the fibre cable into the house.

I have an installation date of late October and if there are any reasons why the install can't go ahead, then I've lost nothing!

I will need a new Smart Hub 2 but that will be shipped free of charge and I will need to run an Ethernet cable alongside the old data cable, but that's a pretty easy and cheap job.

Many thanks again for the helpful responses.

Re: Full Fibre 900. Apparently I can now get it, but not sure what's involved

SuperFlyGuy — Thu, 15 Oct 2020 11:27:15 GMT

Hi Again.

Apologies for resurrecting a slightly old thread.

Full fibre is due to be installed on Monday and I should be receiving a new Smarthub 2 tomorrow. I'm assuming this will have the red "WAN" port on the back which my current Smarthub 2 doesn't have.

My question is this. Will this new router also still have a VDSL modem built in? What I mean is, to try and speed things up on Monday, could I set up the new router in place of my current one and still use FTTC until the new install on Monday or will this new hub only work with full fibre?

I'll more than likely change the SSID and password to match my current router to avoid having to spend an hour connecting all our wireless devices onto the new router.

Thanks in advance for any help or advice.

Re: Full Fibre 900. Apparently I can now get it, but not sure what's involved

NeilO — Thu, 15 Oct 2020 14:40:09 GMT

Hi @SuperFlyGuy, Yes the FTTP Smart Hub 2 will also work with your FTTC connection if you connect it to the grey broadband dsl port. When you get the full fibre install the ONT will need to be connected to the red WAN port.

Re: Full Fibre 900. Apparently I can now get it, but not sure what's involved

SuperFlyGuy — Thu, 15 Oct 2020 14:45:27 GMT

That's brilliant, @NeilO

Many thanks for the quick response. I'll get the new hub set up over the weekend ready for Monday!

Regards

Re: Full Fibre 900. Apparently I can now get it, but not sure what's involved

ch — Thu, 15 Oct 2020 15:27:03 GMT

Slightly upset that ordered it a couple of weeks ago and are getting it installed tomorrow ... I've got a month-long wait for my Fibre 900 install 😞

Re: Full Fibre 900. Apparently I can now get it, but not sure what's involved

SuperFlyGuy — Thu, 15 Oct 2020 18:57:56 GMT

I guess leadtimes differ between different areas. Hopefully, it will be worth the wait! I'll post back on Monday once everything is installed.

Re: Full Fibre 900. Apparently I can now get it, but not sure what's involved

SuperFlyGuy — Mon, 19 Oct 2020 13:10:42 GMT

I just thought I'd give a final (and positive) update to this thread.

2 Openreach engineers arrived this morning at around 8:00. They completed the installation before 9:00 and everything is working perfectly.

Speed tests are showing around 825 Mbps down and 110 Mbps up, so I'm happy. They made a neat job of fitting the box on the outside of the house to bring the cable into the hallway so I can't fault the work they did.

They did have to pull the cable through from inspection hole on the other side of the road, but that seemed to be pretty easy.

Just thought I'd share a positive story. Thanks to everyone who responded in this thread with helpful advice.