FTTP - Fibre to the Premises
Rick Churchill My ISP (Internet Service Provider) is Toob, and the equipment was installed by CityFibre (under my supervision/watchful eye). The equipment consisted of 3 items: the router supplied by Toob and 2 boxes supplied by the installer. The street cable is connected to an internal cable within the outside “interface” box (it is just a cable box designed to take up the cable slack and keep out the rain). This internal cable terminates in the ONT (Optical Network Unit). The interface box and ONT are usually mounted on the outside and the inside of an external wall with a hole drilled between the two.
The ONT is the interface between the optical signals and the electrical signals and is the extent of the responsibility of the installer. I’ll emphasise that. He has no interest in the router and whether it operates correctly; in any case, the first thing the router does when turned on is to download the latest firmware, and he won’t wait around for that to happen. He expects the router to be placed nearby so that the short Ethernet cable that came with the router can be plugged into the ONT. (It its possible for you to buy and install a long ethernet cable through your house should you wish.) He will test the OTN to make sure it is receiving data at the correct speed from his company’s server.
He is also looking for an easy installation, which would be: outside cabling stapled to the wall (which will fall out after a number of years) to the external interface box and a drilled hole to the ONT mounted on the inside wall where your two sockets should be waiting. The extra socket for the router, which has to be located nearby.
In my case, the outside fibre optic cable arrived overhead at the corner of my bungalow. As I required wired connections to some devices and a fuller WiFi coverage of my property and garage and did not want wires trailing round the outside walls, I planned a route through my loft to the middle of the bungalow. I should add that my loft is floored and it is possible to stand upright.
I installed a flexible duct into the roof space to a place where the interface box could be mounted. I installed another duct through the ceiling into a cupboard off the hall where I had installed the router with an additional mains socket for the ONT. All the ducts had drawstrings and were terminated in plastic junction boxes with grommets. The installers routed the fibre-optic cable round my loft stapled to a roof horizontal wooden beam and down a roof wooden support beam on which was mounted one of my junction boxes. The OTN was fixed to the cupboard wall. The router fired up and using an app was easy to set up.
Hope this helps with your own future installation. I have no idea what happens if I change internet provider in future!