Fibre decision: Poor ONT_Modem location or $1,000 install or flag it ?

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MikeAqua

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#177203 26-Jul-2015 12:08

The Transfield man came last week to scope for install of fibre at out place.

Long story short, the install "Chorus is prepared to provide for no charge" is a "back to back" install where the ONT and modem would be in the garage. There is no data cabling to this location and no way to retrofit so we would have to install a WiFi repeater to bounce the signal to where we mostly use it (opposite end and side of the house and also one level up). So we will get a 'free' fibre install that I am concerned will be hampered by internal wifi constraints and may perform worse than our current ADSL setup.

Option B they will run fibre to an ideal location in our house and fit the ONT there.

But .... I will need to pay for about $1k of work myself.

Is it worth it?

Or should I just go with the sub-optimal install and see how it is?

Or should I say "Come back when you are prepared to be more accommodating" ?

Mike

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#1351903 26-Jul-2015 12:13

Get it done once, get it done right.
Frankly, they don't care about your wifi connectivity, they're just paid to put it 'inside' the house.
Mine is in the entrance way hall... it is stupidly at eye level, inside a horrible looking cabinet (7 months old when we moved in), but the pre-wiring means we're fine.
However, if that wasn't in place, we'd have a terrible result all around.

tdgeek

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#1351907 26-Jul-2015 12:19

I'm surprised. AFAIK the ONT location is where you wish it to be. My Enable guy said they allocated 5 hours per install, may have been 4. But some will be 3 some will be 6. Even in the ADSL days, the install was commonly to an existing jack but the customers install included the install to a location where a new jack would be installed.

For you, a problem could be that running the fibre to the house was too hard, but even then run it the easiest way to the house, and once at the house he hops into the ceiling cavity and runs it where you want. Mine was to back of the TV, where there is a powerpoint and a Sky jack, he chose one of those to draw wire it down

PoHq

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#1351913 26-Jul-2015 12:37

There was a time when anything the customer wanted was fine. This is no longer cost effective for Chorus or the service partners.

There are things Chorus will pay the service partners to do and there are things they won't. If the service partners do the things they are not getting paid for well that's just not business unfortunately.

You wouldn't see an electrician or plumber doing extras on top of what you asked them to do for free.

Having said that.........Within reason the ONT can go where the customer wants it. I can only suspect there are circumstances with your property that made back to back the only cost effective option. Perhaps roof or under floor space is an issue?

Also $1000 to patch the ONT through from the garage to the modem seems quite excessive. Again maybe this is due to there being no under house or roof space?

As someone else said do it once do it right. Mine is in my garage and I just patched it through to my cupboard where all my gear is. Very easy just a CAT cable in the roof and down. I like my ONT in the garage. My friend had his put in the hallway and the blinking lights light up the whole hallway.

Hope that helps.

MikeAqua

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#1351924 26-Jul-2015 12:59

Two level house with a large amount of glass on second level so getting up into the ceiling cavity from inside the bottom level is not at all simple.

Using the existing phone cable as a draw wire isn't an option either.

I did ask if the phone line could be re-purposed as a data line from ONT to modem, but apparently that isn't an option as its the wrong type of cable.

Conduit up the outside wall really is the most logical solution. It's just a bit of an expense, and a hassle as it has to be painted to match the house (covenants), and of course the time waiting at home for a tradesman or two to (not) turn up.

I'm almost at the point of putting it in the too hard basket. I mean how much better will UFB really be? Sure it will be faster but how much of that speed is redundant? Everything works fine now with manky old ADSL.

Mike

darylblake

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#1351934 26-Jul-2015 13:01

Do you not have a home hub in the Garage?

I would avoid wireless like the plague in this situation. You are just gonna have problems.

Extenders are not really good in this situation.

Have you called an electrician or data cable expert to see how much they would charge to pop a couple of ethernet port outlets in sections of the house where you wish to plug in or even prefer to have the wireless access point? If the technicians pricing is a a lot less than $1000 to run a couple of ethernet cables through your house (Generally up an through the roof) and back down the wall to a socket then I would get the ONT installed in the garage or home hub as a free install and run cables to it.

I am building a new house early next year and plan to have it all switched in the home hub in the garage and will put UniFi Access points on the roof where i need wireless coverage.

timmmay

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#1351936 26-Jul-2015 13:05

How about using powerline networking to bridge the gap between your garage and where you'd want your WiFi router/switch? It'd be worth the $150 or whatever to see if it works, and you can either sell or return it if it doesn't. Should be ok in a modern house. This one claims to be 600Mbps, but you should do some research on brands, I chose that one at random.

PoHq

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#1351937 26-Jul-2015 13:06

As I suspected, sound's like the property is a bit of a hard one so back to back is all that has been offered for free.

As others have said steer clear of wireless.

If you are checking email and trademe for half an hour a day you will see next to no difference. If you are streaming any kind of content or downloading differences will be huge.

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shk292

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#1351999 26-Jul-2015 14:32

timmmay: How about using powerline networking to bridge the gap between your garage and where you'd want your WiFi router/switch? It'd be worth the $150 or whatever to see if it works, and you can either sell or return it if it doesn't. Should be ok in a modern house. This one claims to be 600Mbps, but you should do some research on brands, I chose that one at random.

+1 for powerline networking. It will easily support the full bandwidth of a 100Mbps internet connection. Presumably you could use it to link the modem/router in your preferred location to the ONT in your garage

myfullflavour

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#1352037 26-Jul-2015 16:15

PoHq: Within reason the ONT can go where the customer wants it. I can only suspect there are circumstances with your property that made back to back the only cost effective option. Perhaps roof or under floor space is an issue?

Also $1000 to patch the ONT through from the garage to the modem seems quite excessive.

I concur. Did they provide a quote that breaks down how they plan to spend this $1000? There is a standard ratecard based on per m of extra cabling and so on for a "non standard install".

MikeAqua

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#1352046 26-Jul-2015 16:54

The install isn't actually that complicated, it's the height that is the issue. Transfield/Chorus have a hard limit for height work and this job exceeds it, so they won't touch it. The house is about 6 years old, but no data cabling installed when it was built and even the phoens are daisy chained. I soooooo wish they had thought ahead a little bit!

There isn't even power close to where the back to back installed ONT would be, it's about an 8M run to the nearest power outlet.

$1,000 is estimates to: -

- Hire a scissor lift (access to soffit)
- Have someone supply and install 20mm conduit from the soffit to near the external termination.
- Have a sparky fit new a electricity outlet at the preferred location for the ONT.
- Run a draw wire from the roof cavity down the wall to where the ONT and modem will be.
- Install a few CAT6 outlets where the ONT is.
- Make some changes to my existing data cabling.

I'm probably incurring some additional expense by having a professional install the conduit and by getting different people to do electrical and network stuff. But I hate heights, and the network guy I use does a really good job, so I'm reluctant to risk having a random sparky do the networking.

I tried two makes of powerline adapters in this house before to get internet into the garage and I couldn't get either to work (they worked fine closer together). Not keen to go down that path again.

Mike

sbiddle

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#1352051 26-Jul-2015 17:01

MikeAqua:
Or should I say "Come back when you are prepared to be more accommodating" ?

This is the approach to take if you never want UFB.

If you want UFB you'll need to accept one of the two proposals.

floydie

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#1352062 26-Jul-2015 17:21

The house is about 6 years old, but no data cabling installed when it was built and even the phoens are daisy chained.

that sucks big time. i cant beleive there are sparkies out there who just dont get data cabling. data cabling SHOULD be part of the electrical regs/ codes of practice and MINIMUM levels of data cabling SHOULD be mandatory in new builds.

I did all our new build network cabling and re-ran the lead in because the sparky had NO CLUE about UFB conduit requirements etc

sbiddle

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#1352071 26-Jul-2015 17:38

floydie:
The house is about 6 years old, but no data cabling installed when it was built and even the phoens are daisy chained.

that sucks big time. i cant beleive there are sparkies out there who just dont get data cabling. data cabling SHOULD be part of the electrical regs/ codes of practice and MINIMUM levels of data cabling SHOULD be mandatory in new builds.

I did all our new build network cabling and re-ran the lead in because the sparky had NO CLUE about UFB conduit requirements etc

I've been working in a brand new apartment building in recent months where there are 2x BT jacks wired in series. The first BT is fed from the frame in the riser, and the other connected via cat6 cable from that.

I agree entirely with that you've said. It's unfortunately the electrical industry doesn't agree with us, and those doing this work don't want to be upskilled because they believe they already know everything.

Sideface

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#1352073 26-Jul-2015 17:39

MikeAqua:

$1,000 is estimates to: -

- Hire a scissor lift (access to soffit)
- Have someone supply and install 20mm conduit from the soffit to near the external termination.
- Have a sparky fit new a electricity outlet at the preferred location for the ONT.
- Run a draw wire from the roof cavity down the wall to where the ONT and modem will be.
- Install a few CAT6 outlets where the ONT is.
- Make some changes to my existing data cabling....

That explains the $1,000.

Yes, fibre really is that much better

If it was me, I'd pay $1,000 for fibre without hesitation. (I can't get it until late 2019)
As others have said, forget wireless.
Ethernet over power MIGHT work, but not as well as a proper install.

Sideface

PoHq

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#1352076 26-Jul-2015 17:46

MikeAqua:

$1,000 is estimates to: -

- Hire a scissor lift (access to soffit)
- Have someone supply and install 20mm conduit from the soffit to near the external termination.
- Have a sparky fit new a electricity outlet at the preferred location for the ONT.
- Run a draw wire from the roof cavity down the wall to where the ONT and modem will be.
- Install a few CAT6 outlets where the ONT is.
- Make some changes to my existing data cabling.

That's actually quite cheap for all that work. I'd have it done for sure. It's pretty much a given that you'll need fibre in the not to distant future not just want it. If you intend to stay in the property I'd go for it.

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