This topic

Very frustrating

Bazooka-joe1 — Thu, 30 Mar 2023 07:20:23 GMT

My costs for broadband were going up for sky superfast and BT had a deal for full fibre which is much cheaper than sky superfast so I placed an order with BT to come in and install fibre into the home. I already have fibre to the house with a box stuck on the outside wall next to the garage which openreach had installed a few months back. My office which sits directly behind the garage has trunking with lots of power points. A subcontractor for openreach turned up yesterday and took one look at the box outside and said I can't install fibre for you. He explained that it would've meant taking the fibre cable around a corner and drilling a hole in to the garage and then in to the office and positioned where the trunking is for power. He said he couldn’t do it as fibre-optic can snap so it has to be in a straight line. . He did offer to put the modem in the garage and said I could run lan cables in to the office but there's no power in the Garage. So I've had to cancel my order and check with sky that they're not cancelling my superfast broadband. Where the box was positioned on the outside wall makes it impossible to drill through just that wall and in to the office.
obviously he knows more than me, so I took what he said is being correct, but if anybody has any ideas then that would be appreciated
He

Re: Very frustrating

licquorice — Thu, 30 Mar 2023 07:46:36 GMT

I'm confused. If you already have fibre to the house why does Openreach need to run another fibre?

Can you post a close up picture of the grey box, its not clear what it is and what function it is performing.

The contractor clearly didn't want to do the job, fibre isn't that delicate. The actual fibre is about the thickness of a human hair and is protected by several layers including a Kevlar layer. As long as any bend radius doesn't exceed that of a £2 coin it will be fine.

Re: Very frustrating

Bazooka-joe1 — Thu, 30 Mar 2023 08:02:19 GMT

I’m not an expert on this sort of thing, but as far as I know, the engineer said that he had to run the fibre-optic cable into the house and they can’t be bent to go around corners as they will snap. So that’s the box on the outside of the wall, which I thought could go through the garage at the top where the vent is through the trunking in the garage and into the office as shown in previous pics

Re: Very frustrating

Les-Gibson — Thu, 30 Mar 2023 08:09:25 GMT

You've been given a load of bull, my fibre has three 90 degree bends in it before it comes through the wall and a fourth one as it emerges into the house and it's never been a problem in too many years to remember

Re: Very frustrating

licquorice — Thu, 30 Mar 2023 08:12:07 GMT

It won't snap.

I can't see a problem with the cable coming out of the CSP up the wall and the into the garage at the top. You could always thread the cable through a 90deg conduit elbow to protect it on the sharp corner of the brickwork.

Re: Very frustrating

Bazooka-joe1 — Thu, 30 Mar 2023 08:17:09 GMT

Thanks. I might go back to BT and ask them if they can arrange for an open reach engineer pop by for a second option when they’re in my area.

Re: Very frustrating

Bazooka-joe1 — Thu, 30 Mar 2023 08:40:40 GMT

Thanks. That’s exactly what I thought. I figured that they could run it up the wall and then through the vent through the ducting in the garage and then drill through the wall into the office where the power points are. He said that wasn’t possible.

Re: Very frustrating

peterh0001 — Fri, 31 Mar 2023 06:59:18 GMT

If you already have fibre to your office I am not sure why Openreach need to install anything. Not familiar with Sky but since it is an OR service I assume they use the same ONT in which case do you not just need a Smart Hub and you are good to go ?

Peter

Re: Very frustrating

licquorice — Fri, 31 Mar 2023 07:10:07 GMT

I suspect the OP has only external fibre as far as the CSP and current service is copper hence requiring internal fibre and ONT to be provided.

Re: Very frustrating

iniltous — Fri, 31 Mar 2023 08:18:21 GMT

Strangely, if it were a contractor that had your installation to finish ( presumably the CSP was fitted where you requested it to be fitted on the first part of a two stage install ) it’s odd they would ‘refuse’ what would be a pretty quick and easy job , given that contractors tend to be paid by completions, handing a job back means they are paid significantly less than if they completed the job, the majority of the work is already done , an hour to hour and a half would see this job completed, although it’s possible there is a ‘2nd stage only’ rate for contractors that make these job less lucrative, perhaps it better for a contractor to pick up 2 or 3 ‘full installations’ per day , than 4 or 5 ‘2nd stage only’ jobs .

I dare say that the next installer won’t have a problem with the way you envisaged the job given that you probably picked the location of the CSP with the rest of the proposed cable run in mind.
AFAIK, jobs a contractor ‘kick back’ are not cancelled but reallocated to an OR technician, who will probably finish the job without any issues.

Re: Very frustrating

OLD_MAN — Fri, 31 Mar 2023 09:06:13 GMT

Having had fibre to the property completed in the last few weeks, there were a few points I was made aware of.

The fibre 'cable' from the street chamber to the CSP (grey box) has a mind of it's own and will snap very easily. I have just tried a piece and the best radius I can get before snapping is about 70mm. The cable has to be handled carefully as it only wants to be straight and you have to be mindful of the whiplash.

The actual optic strand is very fine as demonstrated above alongside a dress making pin but when the cable snaps, it is the two protective Glass fibre cores that run either side of the optic.

Then, the distance from the CSP external grey box to the internal ONT internal white box cannot exceed 3 metres with the connecting white flexible optic cable supplied. The ONT box needs a mains power supply within 1 metre for the connection of the power plug and cable provided.

The single RJ45 output from the ONT to the hub will have a 1 metre RJ45 (red) cable supplied by BT. However, my hub was still over 5 metres from that point so, I purchased a 7 metre RJ45 cable but the spec must be Cat6 or above S-FTP/PIMF. That ensures minimum data loss . That RJ45 cable put a big dent in my weekly pension!

I get a consistent 925 down and 110 up so well pleased with the service. Hope this helps somebody somewhere 🙂

Old Granddad

Re: Very frustrating

licquorice — Fri, 31 Mar 2023 09:23:14 GMT

@OLD_MAN wrote:

Having had fibre to the property completed in the last few weeks, there were a few points I was made aware of.

The fibre 'cable' from the street chamber to the CSP (grey box) has a mind of it's own and will snap very easily. I have just tried a piece and the best radius I can get before snapping is about 70mm. The cable has to be handled carefully as it only wants to be straight and you have to be mindful of the whiplash.

The actual optic strand is very fine as demonstrated above alongside a dress making pin but when the cable snaps, it is the two protective Glass fibre cores that run either side of the optic.

This thread is about the internal cabling, not the external feed to the CSP.

Then, the distance from the CSP external grey box to the internal ONT internal white box cannot exceed 3 metres with the connecting white flexible optic cable supplied. The ONT box needs a mains power supply within 1 metre for the connection of the power plug and cable provided.

30M, not 3M

The single RJ45 output from the ONT to the hub will have a 1 metre RJ45 (red) cable supplied by BT. However, my hub was still over 5 metres from that point so, I purchased a 7 metre RJ45 cable but the spec must be Cat6 or above S-FTP/PIMF. That ensures minimum data loss . That RJ45 cable put a big dent in my weekly pension!

Cat 5E is more than adequate

I get a consistent 925 down and 110 up so well pleased with the service. Hope this helps somebody somewhere 🙂

Old Granddad

Re: Very frustrating

pippincp — Fri, 31 Mar 2023 14:02:53 GMT

@OLD_MAN From the CSP to ONT an E-Z bend cable is used. Perhaps you need to see this.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-LxNAVGzfTg

Re: Very frustrating

Bazooka-joe1 — Sun, 02 Apr 2023 07:46:20 GMT

Thanks all. If the distance from the CSP external grey box to the internal ONT internal white box cannot exceed 3 metres with the connecting white flexible optic cable supplied then I have a problem as the to cable up the wall and through the garage to the office where the white box should be about 20 feet. Openreach are coming back at the end of the month so I will hsve to see what they say

Re: Very frustrating

iniltous — Sun, 02 Apr 2023 08:27:47 GMT

There is no 3m limit on the cable from the CSP to the ONT , these cables which have a pre fitted SC/APC plug on them , that plugs into the optical port of the ONT , they are available in various sizes, to minimise the waste , obviously you wouldn’t use a 30m cable on a 5m run and throw away 20+ metres of cable unnecessarily, and this can be a type of cable that has a protective black jacket/cover , once the cable is inside the property this external ‘jacket’ is removed ( AFAIK called an ‘inside out’ cable or something similar) , so it more closely resembles a typical white ‘internal’ type cable , there are also cables that don’t have this jacket , if there won’t be any part of the cable visible externally, the installer picking the appropriate cable for the job at hand.

The only distance related issues would be if someone requested that the ONT were located somewhere within the property that required a long and complicated internal run through the property, in those cases it’s more the time that would be required to run cable with would result in a refusal to locate the ONT at that location than the distance, but I would imagine in the vast majority of cases a location for the ONT can be agreed between the installer and consumer , a tech would likely run as much cable externally as possible to avoid torturous cable runs internally, entering the property as close as possibly to where the ONT is wanted

Finally connected

Bazooka-joe1 — Tue, 18 Apr 2023 14:24:23 GMT

So a few weeks back i posted my experiences of attempting to subscribe to fibre. I’ve had lots of useful advice from you guys after a subcontractor for OpenReach turned up and took one look at my house and said sorry it can’t be done and gave me lots of reasons quoting that fibre-optic was too fragile to go around corners and that I needed power in the garage before he could do anything and then he went away. I’m now finally connected as I asked for another openreach engineer to come and have a look and this time I got a proper engineer who said it was tricky but not a problem and he did a neat and tidy job and an hour later I was connected to a 900 GB connection although at the moment it’s only 500gb to the hub but I’ve been told by BT that will increase over the next couple of days.

Anyway, I just want to say thanks as if it hadn’t been for you guys and your expertise, I would’ve given up rather than call BT again and insist that they come and have another look