ONT installation - can they run the cable through my loft?

[Armrdillo]

I've just ordered FTTP broadband and heave checked before my property will have an overhead cable instead of underground. Currently my phone line goes into the kitchen (horrible location too, mounted on the side of the window recess), but the location is not suitable for the ONT modem as there are no easily accessible power sockets.

Ideally, I'm hoping the I could help to pull the cable through a hole in the soffit, across my loft and out the other side of the house so it can go down the wall to my living room. Is this something they will likely accommodate if I do the routing through the loft or against regulation?

[Irish-Lynda]

I would use their chat help and ask them. Must have been asked this before.

[JetLag]

Looking at installations around here it seems that many installers opt for the easiest solution!

My issue was that where the undergound ducting arrives just in front of my semi detached house there is a kitchen with cabinets against the outside wall and a downstairs cloakroom, with no power!

I planned ahead and drilled a hole through the wall (to the outside) from inside the boxed in sewage down pipe and fed 15mm flexible conduit up through the void into the boxed in area in the bathroom above into the attic. I then fed another flexible conduit down behind the plaster board through the bedroom down into the sitting room below. The conduit was then fed into the understairs cupboard (in the sitting room) where my existing router modem and NAS (Network Attached Storage) was installed.

This was a lot of work and much making good was done after the install!

The Openreach guys were outstanding and were able to install the ONT in the understairs cupboard and feed the fibre cable up through the conduit into the attic, across the attic and down through the conduit into the downstairs cloakroom and then through to the outside where the CSP was installed.

Most of my neighbours waited for the OR guys to do the install and had no idea what the implications of the install meant. Most of them thought that the fibre cable would be fed into the house via the already installed telephone cable and through to where the BT telephone point is!! These houses now have fibre cables tacked alongside the outside of their houses and through  a badly sealed hole into their sitting rooms where there was a power point available! This is probably a security issue in the years ahead as the fibre optic cable (and therefore internet/telephone/burglar alarm access)  can easily be cut!

I feel little information is given by BT when signing up for FTTP what the implications are for the new fibre installation! I am pleased that I asked a few questions on this forum during the three month wait for my installation, and was able to plan for it!!

[Armrdillo]

Wow, what an incredible project! My situation isn't nearly as complicated as yours since the telephone line (and presumably the overhead fibre line from the pole) is anchored high up on my wall about half a metre under the soffit so should be an easy thing to go up into the loft.

It would be nice to have the cable go down into the living room internally from the loft, but don't have much confidence in doing that! Just hope I get Openreach guys as accommodating as yours were!

[Armrdillo · Accepted solution]

Leaving my experience here for posterity. In a nutshell, with advance preparations the engineer was willing to go with my plan and the installation was perfection.

The day before the engineer arrived, I crawled around the hot stuffy loft for about an hour feeding through fish tape through the soffit on the side of the house I wanted the CSP to be installed, through 10m of plastic electrical conduit laid down on the loft and out through the soffit on the other side of the house just where the current copper line was anchored from the pole. It was sweaty and horrible work, but well worth the effort.

The engineer arrived in the morning (I booked the morning appointment as I thought he'll be fresh and more amenable to my plan) and explained to him my plan and he was totally onboard, especially as I've already got the end of the fish tape ready to pull through the cable.

The hitch arrived to pass the fibre cable from the pole to the anchor point on my house and once that was secured, he attached it to the fish tape and I pulled it through to the other side of the house. Once I had the cable coming back out through the soffit, he did the rest of the job of securing the cable down the wall, installing the CSP at ground level (I learnt then that the CSP needs to be installed at ground level) and the ONT modem installed inside the house. As I already had a hole in the wall where the Sky cable went through, he didn't even need to drill a hole.

The young chap who did the work was very professional and meticulous in his work and my FTTP broadband was up and running before lunch. Couldn't have asked for more. Also I asked him to remove the existing copper line as I wanted to get rid of the master socket in the kitchen which was a horrible place to have it and I've no interest in a home phone anyway. He actually used a hybrid cable so if for some reason I wanted a copper line again, the new cable would support that.

[stevebrass]

I have a feeling that Openreach and Contractors will not go in lofts - I may be wrong.

But if you install suitable ducting  from soffit to soffit and include  draw string (fish tape?) I think the technician on the day would be very amenable to that.

Remember in the house you will need power for the ONT (the fibre optic modem) and your router.

My cable comes up out of the ground from ducting, but I installed ducting in a trench to take it from the duct to a more suitable position. I used water overflow pipe. Good diameter, smooth instead.

Getting your hand down between the roof line and the soffit can be tricky. Wear gloves!

[JetLag]

@Armrdillo  Well done on achieving success. This goes to show that if potential FTTP customers were made aware of the technical challenges that face Openreach technicians when carrying out an instal,l in the limited time available, more customers would  be prepared to carry out a little pre installation preparation.

It is obvious from reading through this forum that a lot more education needs to be done to avoid unhappy customer installs.

My young Openreach installers offered to go up into my loft (probably thought I was a bit too old at 78!) but as I had installed the conduit and knew where the holes (and safe footing was) I decided that I would be the one in the loft.

The ONT was installed into my understairs cupboard and I pulled the fibre cable through the conduit using my fishtape up into my attic. I then fed it across the attic to the conduit going down inside the soil pipe enclosure and they pulled the fibre cable down using my fishtape. Mobile phone chat between us worked well!

Then through the wall to where the CSP was installed.

Well done to my Openreach technicians, they did a good job and I am a very happy bunny!!

[johnhorton88]

Kelly's wouldn't go into my loft when I had FTTP installed.

Health and Safety reasons he claimed.

[pippincp]

@johnhorton88  That is correct. If you actually read this thread you would not see any install engineer going into the loft.

[stevebrass]

But OR technicians did offer to go into the loft.