Installation - Router location

[CatDaddy60]

I am/was switching from Virgin Media to Sky for TV & broadband but after calling Sky earlier today, I'm not sure the switch can go ahead. It all hinges on the location of the new Sky router.

At present, my Virgin cable comes into the front of my house and emerges just behind the TV. From there the feed is split in two and one cable drops down to my VM TV box. The other cable drops down further, runs along the side of my living room wall under the carpet, and through a hole in a wooden partition into my home office. That's where my router needs to live as I work in IT and have various bits of hardware plugged into it including an 8-port switch.

I called Sky earlier today and was told that the Sky cable would come in through the front wall but the cable would be plugged straight into the router. That would be no good to me as the router would then be in my hallway at the front and all my kit in the home office at the back. The guy told me that they "might be able to extend the cable but it would cost me £65 plus."

This is a deal breaker for me so if anyone can clarify where Sky puts their router I would very much appreciate it.

Thanks.

[TimmyBGood]

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@CatDaddy60 wrote:

 if anyone can clarify where Sky puts their router I would very much appreciate it.

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Firstly, the critical infrastructure belongs to Openreach, not Sky.  In the vast majority of installations no Sky personnel will attend.

Putting the address into the BT Wholesale Availability Checker should indicate which provisioning type is applicable.

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.

[CatDaddy60]

It states 'Available, 1 Stage' and the first two text lines below the table state - 

Our records show the following FTTP network service information for these premises:-Single Dwelling Unit Residential OH Feed crosses busy road requiring two engineers.

FTTP is available and a new ONT may be ordered

Does that help any?

[TimmyBGood]

@CatDaddy60 

OH Feed crosses busy road requiring two engineers

Great, so you'd be getting a new FTTP installation, arriving from a phone pole.  Note the caveat which means it's not necessarily a straightforward job, and that can lead to delays.

Typically for an overhead installation Openreach will land the new optical cable at eaves height closest to the pole.  It will then run down the wall to an external Customer Service Point (CSP - small plastic box) at just above ground level.

From there an fibre optic pigtail is fusion spliced to one of the four optical strands, and can be run around the property on the wall at ground level (if there's a clear path) to a more suitable entry point of the residents choice: otherwise they'll drill through next to the CSP itself.

The Openreach ONT ('fibre modem') goes at the other end of this optical pigtail (typically close to the entry hole) and then the ISP router (Sky Hub) links to the ONT using a short supplied ethernet cable: this link can be extended over standard Cat5e as desired within the 100 metre distance limit inherent to ethernet.

[TimmyBGood]

@CatDaddy60 

Note that the arrival of an optical cable renders any existing Openreach copper obsolete (including internal phone extensions) and that the Virgin infrastructure is irrelevant to the process.

[CatDaddy60]

Thanks.

I think I know where the cable would enter the house as there used to be a BT-line on the house when I moved in 23 years ago and one day an engineer asked if I needed it - which I didn't - so he chopped it down.

Can I just clarify what happens inside the house - would the fibre optic cable be run around the skirting/under carpets to reach my home office and then the Sky router plugged into the end of that via ethernet cable i.e. could my router stay in the same position it is now right next to my work desk?

[TimmyBGood · Accepted solution]

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@CatDaddy60 wrote:

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I think I know where the cable would enter the house as there used to be a BT-line on the house when I moved in 23 years ago and one day an engineer asked if I needed it - which I didn't - so he chopped it down.

That would have been copper: its historic location almost certainly isn't relevant to FTTP.

Can I just clarify what happens inside the house - would the fibre optic cable be run around the skirting/under carpets to reach my home office 

No: that kind of bespoke installation is outside the scope of what the ISP is paying Openreach about £100 to do.

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