topic ONT box but not plugged in / in use?! in Broadband

ONT box but not plugged in / in use?!

Alexis00 — Mon, 15 Apr 2024 19:26:09 GMT

I have just received our Sky Hub, which says to plug it into the ONT but it seems the ONT that the previous owners had are now disconnected and no longer plugged in? We had Virgin which was a completely different box / connection!

Help please!! I don't know what to do to get this sorted!

Thanks!!

Re: ONT box but not plugged in / in use?!

TimmyBGood — Mon, 15 Apr 2024 19:33:28 GMT

@Alexis00

If Openreach has a record of there being FTTP at the address, that's what Sky will have provisioned service on. Any Virgin hardware is irrelevant to an Openreach client ISP.

To function, an ONT should have an optical cable (green jack) and power supply: these, if present, can be reconnected very easily by yourselves as long as they are physically intact.

Posting a picture of the ONT here may help.

Re: ONT box but not plugged in / in use?!

TimmyBGood — Mon, 15 Apr 2024 19:40:37 GMT

@Alexis00

If there's simply no evidence of an ONT, putting the address into the BT Wholesale Availability Checker should indicate if there's been one in the past.

https://www.broadbandchecker.btwholesale.com/#/ADSL/AddressHome

It's the table and the two text lines below it which are most useful.

Remove any personal information (such as the address itself) if you post an image.

Re: ONT box but not plugged in / in use?!

Alexis00 — Mon, 15 Apr 2024 19:43:35 GMT

Hi @TimmyBGood ,

thanks for your response. It seems to have a green cable & a 'power' supply plugged in but nothing connecting to any sockets (no power lights anywhere!). Pic attached if it helps (excuse the dust!) !

Re: ONT box but not plugged in / in use?!

Alexis00 — Mon, 15 Apr 2024 19:46:11 GMT

@TimmyBGood this is from the link, not sure what this means?

Thanks for your help

Re: ONT box but not plugged in / in use?!

TimmyBGood — Mon, 15 Apr 2024 22:16:53 GMT

@Alexis00

OK, that's an early model Openreach ONT with a Battery Backup Unit (BBU) : this is the other box on the wall with the three LEDs.

The intention is that a mains wall socket hosts an external transformer plug, this plug continuously trickle-charges the BBU, and the BBU supplies the ONT, so keeping it going in a power cut.

However, the BBU is effectively pointless because it cannot power an ISP router (it was intended for a different voice telephony deployment method which never happened) so it's quite legitimate to put the mains power connection straight to the ONT instead.

The WAN port (eth #4) on the Sky Broadband Hub then connects to the ONT ethernet port 1 using the supplied ethernet cable.

Re: ONT box but not plugged in / in use?!

TimmyBGood — Mon, 15 Apr 2024 22:15:31 GMT

@Alexis00

Unfortunately it's quite possible that the mains transformer itself (typically a white plug) is missing: they do have a bad habit of departing with previous residents.

If that's the case you'll need to call Sky to book a replacement from Openreach.

I guess in theory you could put fresh batteries into the BBU (AAs, I think), but I suspect those would only provide a very short run time.

Re: ONT box but not plugged in / in use?!

TimmyBGood — Tue, 16 Apr 2024 07:41:18 GMT

@Alexis00

"2000mAH-NiMH (1.2v) BYD rechargeable AA batteries" according to this:

https://www.ispreview.co.uk/index.php/2018/10/openreach-to-stop-providing-battery-backup-for-fttp-broadband.html