[SOLVED] About Fiber internet

punkncat

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AT&T have just run fiber internet in our neighborhood. They replaced the old wire along the poles with the new and have had work trucks in at out at a couple of my neighbor's homes running the wire from pole to home. I have a question for those of you that use this service (with any provider, I suppose).

When we purchased this house the phone and cable wiring was a HUGE mess. I pulled everything out aside from one phone line from the block to the kitchen. I have never tested it. I never intended to go back with Bell/AT&T and for the last nearly decade cable was the fast player where it came to internet.
My phone and cable block are on the end of the garage, street side. This is the only area of the house over slab, the garage floor. The phone and cable wire went up into the attic from there. This is the corner of the house and getting to that area is nearly impossible at this point.
The first phone termination was the kitchen where it then went down into the basement to connect to the other lines. I re-ran all the cable and have sided the house. When we sided, I ran a feeder cable into the basement and ran all new cable, tied everything into a distro, etc.
All that to say that basically, where the phone block is now there is no way to run a concealed wire back inside the house without removing siding, which I am not inclined to do. It's that cement board stuff, hardy plank? If it were vinyl, it would make things so much simpler...

To get to the point. If you have swapped over to fiber from the traditional copper line, I would assume they run the fiber (or some new wire) from the pole to the block. From that point, where and what gets pulled into the house?
The only fiber installs I have seen were at other folk's house and really didn't take any time to actually look it over. I have been an installer for years, but this particular situation is a bit tricky without running something visible along the side of the house or inside the garage.

Edit- To be clearer about what I am asking. Do they bring the 'fiber' connection from the street to the phone block and then another fiber into the house? Do they run the same wire inside to the equipment?
IE, if I were going to set this up the way I want the tech to run the wire, do I go find a piece of fiber and run it myself, set up a pull string?
 
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First cable they installed is the one they buried, it was caulked into the wall. Still connected to the socket inside my house, and I didn't let anyone else in.

Your situation may have been different, particularly if they damaged it while burying. But it sounds like you may have had more obstacles as well, that required them to disconnect the cable add conduit/tubing, or upgrade to a more rugged cable to meet some local code. My cable runs from the junction box at the right front of my yard, goes around the back of the house to the side to hit my office/'too small to be a reasonable bedroom' room.

It was rather funny, to turn on the signal to my box they had to find the main junction. Took them over four hours. One of the neighbors...

kanewolf

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AT&T have just run fiber internet in our neighborhood. They replaced the old wire along the poles with the new and have had work trucks in at out at a couple of my neighbor's homes running the wire from pole to home. I have a question for those of you that use this service (with any provider, I suppose).

When we purchased this house the phone and cable wiring was a HUGE mess. I pulled everything out aside from one phone line from the block to the kitchen. I have never tested it. I never intended to go back with Bell/AT&T and for the last nearly decade cable was the fast player where it came to internet.
My phone and cable block are on the end of the garage, street side. This is the only area of the house over slab, the garage floor. The phone and cable wire went up into the attic from there. This is the corner of the house and getting to that area is nearly impossible at this point.
The first phone termination was the kitchen where it then went down into the basement to connect to the other lines. I re-ran all the cable and have sided the house. When we sided, I ran a feeder cable into the basement and ran all new cable, tied everything into a distro, etc.
All that to say that basically, where the phone block is now there is no way to run a concealed wire back inside the house without removing siding, which I am not inclined to do. It's that cement board stuff, hardy plank? If it were vinyl, it would make things so much simpler...

To get to the point. If you have swapped over to fiber from the traditional copper line, I would assume they run the fiber (or some new wire) from the pole to the block. From that point, where and what gets pulled into the house?
The only fiber installs I have seen were at other folk's house and really didn't take any time to actually look it over. I have been an installer for years, but this particular situation is a bit tricky without running something visible along the side of the house or inside the garage.
I have had fiber (FIOS) twice. The install that was done was underground fiber to the side of the house. A box (the ONT -- optical network termination) installed on the side of the house. A power cable run inside to provide power to the ONT and either coax or ethernet from the ONT inside for the data and TV (FIOS provides both in some areas).
I don't know what types of connectivity AT&T provides from their ONTs.
 
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punkncat

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I have had fiber (FIOS) twice. The install that was done was underground fiber to the side of the house. A box (the ONT -- optical network termination) installed on the side of the house. A power cable run inside to provide power to the ONT and either coax or ethernet from the ONT inside for the data and TV (FIOS provides both in some areas).
I don't know what types of connectivity AT&T provides from their ONTs.

I have ZERO idea. I am familiar with fiber from a way up in space kind of view. I have experience with running it for camera systems and in particular the govn't buildings in a nearby county. Our owner would never train us in the termination because he knew that would allow us to leave for much higher paying jobs at the time. Up until very recently the south side of Atlanta has not really been on the radar for providers. I had no idea this was even happening until they started driving one of those LCD screen on the top advertising vehicles down the street.
 

kanewolf

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I have ZERO idea. I am familiar with fiber from a way up in space kind of view. I have experience with running it for camera systems and in particular the govn't buildings in a nearby county. Our owner would never train us in the termination because he knew that would allow us to leave for much higher paying jobs at the time. Up until very recently the south side of Atlanta has not really been on the radar for providers. I had no idea this was even happening until they started driving one of those LCD screen on the top advertising vehicles down the street.
I ran a conduit to the area I knew the fiber would be pulled. I used that conduit to provide an ethernet cable (the house already had home-run quad shield RG6 installed nearby). I fished a pull string all the way to my garage to allow the power supply to be installed in my garage.

You say your neighbors already have service. Ask one of them about the install.
 

USAFRet

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I have FiOS as well, and exactly the same as kanewolf.

Fiber line to the side of the house (back wall of the garage), then through the wall into the ONT.
After that, coax to the router. Ethernet and coax after that.

And in my case, the main Verizon interconnect box for the whole neighborhood is in my backyard, so I have the shortest fiber run possible.
 

punkncat

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I am not "friendly" with any of the neighbors I have seen with the service truck there. I will ask my next door buddy if they have any plans for...

It would seem that I could get them to bring it into the wall where my (overhead) service comes in and run that cable exposed inside the garage area to the nearest electrical outlet about 10' in. In that placement I can either run conduit to the basement from there or can access there from above.

Thanks for the replies.
 

kanewolf

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I am not "friendly" with any of the neighbors I have seen with the service truck there. I will ask my next door buddy if they have any plans for...

It would seem that I could get them to bring it into the wall where my (overhead) service comes in and run that cable exposed inside the garage area to the nearest electrical outlet about 10' in. In that placement I can either run conduit to the basement from there or can access there from above.

Thanks for the replies.
You might even be able to get a technical "briefing" from one of the AT&T techs if you asked in a way that implied you would like to get service but have some questions ...
 
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USAFRet

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The house I'm in, I had FiOS earlier. (house was taken over by my ex and kids...:( )

Getting it hooked up this time, I knew the drill.
I had the coax already strung from where the ONT was to be to where I needed the router.
The tech just had install the ONT and power it up, then verify connection at the router.

He had the typical 2 hours scheduled for the full install, took 20 minutes.
So we sat around and BS'd, and he gave me a bunch of free stuff. To include a MOCA adapter that now provides ethernet to the whole upstairs.
 

Eximo

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I just got AT&T fiber. In my case they just ran the fiber up to the house and drilled a hole through the wall in the room of my choosing, buried the cable about a week later.

Not really an option to go under the house or do anything else sensible in my case. Brick exterior on concrete. Only one opening to the crawlspace/basement from the outside, which would have been near the dryer vent. It could have been done, but it would have meant having that cable laying around exposed in the crawlspace where things could get at it.
 
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punkncat

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I just got AT&T fiber. In my case they just ran the fiber up to the house and drilled a hole through the wall in the room of my choosing, buried the cable about a week later.

Not really an option to go under the house or do anything else sensible in my case. Brick exterior on concrete. Only one opening to the crawlspace/basement from the outside, which would have been near the dryer vent. It could have been done, but it would have meant having that cable laying around exposed in the crawlspace where things could get at it.


Lol, you live down the street from me then? Can I come look?
(I kid)

Our service comes in overhead. Aside from that the driveway, water line, and septic system are all in the way of running a buried cable.

Where this comes inside, does the cable they drilled and brought in terminate directly to the 'modem' (etc.) or is there a larger box and then the modem?
 

Eximo

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Of course, that is for whatever recent installation standards they are doing, equipment might vary by region/infrastructure. Not sure when they dropped fiber into my neighborhood, I just moved in and it was available. Cheaper and faster than Xfinity so it was a no brainer. I only have 500Mbps, but 1Gbps is just another 20 a month (maybe 15 now, the pricing fluctuates a little). Just don't need that much bandwidth.
 
Like eximo I just had att put in abut a month ago but I have not actually used it much, to lazy to change everything over.

Almost a year ago they started running the stuff in the street, all underground in my case. Exactly as eximo says they run fiber from the street and go into the room you want.....mostly. They would not put it in the garage, I was planning on using my conduit to get to a room that does not have a outside wall. They actually agreed to run the fiber all the way using my conduit. Was trivial since I had pull strings already.

For now it is much cheaper than comcast. $70/month for gigabit including the mandatory router rental. I think it goes up $20 in a year. In my case if you sign up online they give you $200.
 
A note on how they bury it. They run a temp fiber over the ground and a week or so a different company comes and puts in the real fiber. ATT then comes back and swaps to the buried one. There is a box with a splice point on the outside of the house.

I was surprised that they did not bury it deeper maybe 6 inches at most. They used steel pipe and water to get it under sidewalk and driveways.
 

Eximo

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First cable they installed is the one they buried, it was caulked into the wall. Still connected to the socket inside my house, and I didn't let anyone else in.

Your situation may have been different, particularly if they damaged it while burying. But it sounds like you may have had more obstacles as well, that required them to disconnect the cable add conduit/tubing, or upgrade to a more rugged cable to meet some local code. My cable runs from the junction box at the right front of my yard, goes around the back of the house to the side to hit my office/'too small to be a reasonable bedroom' room.

It was rather funny, to turn on the signal to my box they had to find the main junction. Took them over four hours. One of the neighbors had put it under a decorative barrel.
 
Solution
ATT uses Gpon of one form or another. This system has say 32 houses on 1 fiber strand for example but it can be over 128. They use multiple physical splitters that optically split the signal. These splitters are spaced at fairly regular intervals so they do not have to run the fiber all the way back to the entrance just back to the nearest splitter.

Att is starting to convert over to XGS-PON which has a network speed on each fiber of 10g up and 10g down, shared between every one on the fiber. The newest router actually has a 2.5g port on it even though they do not offer plans above 1g.
 
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