Full Fibre Questions

[m0sbf]

Morning,

My broadband contract ends in March and I am exploring renewal options. I currently have FTTC copper broadband with a download speed of 50MB max. A postcode lookup of my property shows full fibre services are available from BT and I called BT to confirm that yesterday. I am looking at upgrading to Fibre100 but have a few questions:

1. My house was built 20 years ago and only has copper cabling to the premises. So my first question is how do BT get a fibre optic cable into my property? Can they pull it through a cable duct? Also, does the outside grey box on the wall of my house have ducting to the internal master socket? Or is a new hole drilled through the wall to accommodate the fibre? Here is a picture of the existing BT cable termination on the outside wall of my house:

Wallbox for BT copper cables

At the edge of my garden is this BT man hole cover:

BT cover plate

2. Since I used to have two phone lines (one was disconnected a few years ago), I have a master socket in the hall and another phone line master socket upstairs with the router. I'd like to get the Fibre router moved to the existing hall master socket as this would improve WiFi signal around the house. Would this be possible at no additional cost?

3. Does Fibre100 include the conversion of my existing copper landline into Digital Voice service, with voicemail and cordless digital phone/s? I believe that my existing copper landline services will all move over to digital?

4. I have had major problems with BT hubs in the past particularly with buggy firmware. This resulted in continual VDSL service dropouts with my VDSL Smart Hub which lowered my line speed at the cabinet. These problems were cured when I moved to a dedicated TP-Link VDSL2 router. I think Fibre100 comes with a BT Hub 2, so how reliable is BT Hub 2 and can I buy and add mesh WiFi boxes to it (like BT's), should WiFi coverage be inadequate with just the Hub 2? Are there still firmware issues with BT Hub 2 and is it a mature stable product?

5. How good is the WiFi on the BT Hub 2 compared to older FTTC hubs like the "BT VDSL2 Smart Hub"? I have a reasonable size house so good 2.4G and 5G coverage is really important.

Thanks for answering these questions. I appreciate any help/guidance from you all.

Steve

[pippincp]

1, Yes the existing ducting will be used, there may need another hole drilled.

2. Forget about existing master sockets as they will be redundant as far as broadband is concerned, decide where you want the ONT to be sited and discuss with the install engineer.

3. More than likely. Digital Voice is increasingly being rolled out as the copper phone service will be terminated in 2025.

4. DLM was the cause of your past speed drops and does not operate on FTTP. WiFi discs are availablle for the hubs.

5. Never having used one I cannot comment.

[m0sbf]

Thanks, that's a big help.

[stevebrass]

In addition to @pippincp 's response, I use a mesh system with my FTTP.

To enable Digital Voice, I connect the mesh system to the SH2 (I have the SH2 wifi switched off ) and things work a treat.

I have also trialled NOT using the SH2 and connecting the mesh system directly to the BT fitted modem (the ONT) and this also worked perfectly. No reason why it shouldn't really.

So if you want to use DV you need to use the SH2. If you don't want to use DV, you don't need to use the SH2.

Normally, the "fewer boxes" the better but if a fault developed BT would want the SH2 to be is use.

Finally, if port forwarding and double natting mean anything to you using SH2 with a mesh system might gives problems. If they don't mean anything to you - don't worry about them!

[m0sbf]

Thanks. I need to use DV to retain my landline. 

Just finished ordering everything. Install is on 1st March.