Switching to Community Fibre; internal cabling question

Otorongo

Otorongo

Otorongo

Associate
Joined
2 Aug 2023
Posts
4
Location
the rainy archipelago
I'm currently with VM and have a coaxial cable concealed under the floor all the way from the front to the rear of the house where I need it to be. I'm switching to CF, where I can't simply re-use the coaxial. I made a post about it a few months ago.

However, I've now remembered I also have a concealed Ethernet cable running through the lounge where I want it concealed. Not sure what type (Cat5, Cat5e, Cat6?), but I've tested the speed using LanBench and got speeds in the order of 600-700 Mbps, which is enough, especially since the CF package I'm looking at is 150 Mbps.

The relevant part of the ground floor layout is:
Reception (front) - partition wall - Lounge (rear)

All I need is a wired connection from CF to the partition wall on the lounge side.

My question is: can I get them to lay the internal fibre patch across the reception and through the partition wall, and to put the ONT in the lounge?
It would require drilling a hole in the partition wall. If that's too much to ask them, I'm happy to drill it myself in preparation for the engineer's visit. Do you know how thick their internal fibre patch cable is, including the plugs?
 
Every installer will be different, but the one that installed my fibre (Openreach) said they prefer the shortest run possible usually. Having fibre runs through the house increase the risk of it being damaged which isn't a simple repair. The fibre is around 3-4mm thick in total.
 
Thanks. The reception room is not really used and the cable would be behind the wardrobes, so I'm not worried about that risk personally.

If the installer chooses not to do it, I can always buy a fibre cable and do it myself, which I'd prefer to using an Ethernet cable, as the latter would require a bigger hole in the wall and an RJ45 coupler.
 
The installers that did my CF were happy to install exactly where I wanted, plus left me a 10m fibre cable so could move the ONT later myself.

You have the fibre from the street, that goes to small box that has the fibre tail termination, then from this you have a pluggable fibre to the ONT which then has rj45 cat6a to the router, either the supplied unit or your own.
 
Move furniture out the way in advance, drill the hole through the wall if you have the tools to do this, and they will run the internal cable for you. It's about 3mm and they terminate the end on a little box with a socket on.
 
Your best bet is to ask the installer. I had CF installed nearly a year ago as well, and where I wanted it they had to drill through a couple of internal walls on top of the external wall, and they were happy to do it.
 
I had my CF installed last month, I asked them if they could put the modem and cables in the hallway where my Virgin SH3 box and router are, so a simple case of one hole drilled (near where the Virgin cable was) near the front door, the first guy I spoke to was doing the main cable at telegraph pole and he said to ask the second guy when he arrives since he does the internal house cabling, anyway he was ok to do it once he had a look and said should be no problem. All done within 80 minutes.

The reason why I wanted it in the hallway is I have a CAT7 cable that goes from router to top of the house and my network switches, so I'm getting the full 946Mb upload/download speed on my 1Gb package. I use my own router as well to the CF modem.

:)
 
Robert T. said:
Hmm, just as a point of info - my FTTP is run with fibre cable around 1mm in diameter... but I live in block of flats, so this may be "internal only" cable..?
Click to expand...
1mm diameter? Seems incredibly thin considering that would have to comprise not only of the fibre but also the sheathing as well.

Most multimode simplex fibre would be at least 1.6mm in diameter.
 
Last edited:
Robert T. said:
Hmm, just as a point of info - my FTTP is run with fibre cable around 1mm in diameter... but I live in block of flats, so this may be "internal only" cable..?
Click to expand...

Same, pretty sure the Hyperoptic installer said it's called Invisilight. He ran it around the top edge of the skirting board to where I wanted the media converter installed and you wouldn't even know it's there unless you went looking for it.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom