Sky Fibre upgrade.

[Pete069]

Question, it's time for us to upgrade to Sky Fibre as a long standing Sky customer I wondered if anyone could assist with a couple of questions:

My Mac computer is located upstairs in a spare bedroom, am I able to have the Fibre connection made to this room, my current connection (Router) is presently located in this room, I prefer my computer to have a hard wired link and not use WiFi.  The rest of the house is WiFi friendly. FYI, Fibre is available at my location.

Are there deals available fror long standing customers or are prices fixed and with no bargaining offered, I have been with Sky a long time and have no issues to date with the service.

That's it, I look forward to any advice that is available.

[TimmyBGood]

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@Pete069 wrote:

My Mac computer is located upstairs in a spare bedroom, am I able to have the Fibre connection made to this room, my current connection (Router) is presently located in this room, I prefer my computer to have a hard wired link and not use WiFi.  

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That depends on the route the new optical cable is going to take: typically Openreach will only do a ground floor installation of an ONT.

If it's in the UK, putting the address into the BT Wholesale Availability Checker should indicate which broadband 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.

[Pete069]

Here is a screen grab, hopefully it's readable......Thanks:

 

[TimmyBGood]

@Pete069 

That appears to indicate an underground ('UG') delivery for the optical cable, so typically the CSP would be a little above the damp course with the ONT inside on the ground floor.

Installers have been known to accept requests for an optical pigtail to go externally to first floor height before coming inside, but they are under no obligation to do so.

[Pete069]

You're assumption is correct, the optical cable is under the footpath outside our home, there is a removable "metal' panel in our front outer downstairs wall that gives access to the air gap, I wanted to know about having the cable routed upstairs because that is how my BT telephone line enters the house for the computer, there an external phone cable from here to the upstairs room where a phone socket was  installed for connection to my router (now Sky Q).  

I know this  phone socket will be null and void following a move to Fibre, there is a phone socket in the downstairs room bang opposite where the "metal" panel is on the outer wall, this being the phone lines entry point when the house was new, it remains active.

Hopefully the above all makes sense.  

I guess this is going to be a case whom comes on the day, TBH I cannot be the only person that wants to have there Fibre cable routed to an upstairs room.

Thanks for your replies, much appreciated, unless you have any further thoughts on this I think we are probably done!

[JimM1]

@Pete069 It's realy simple and OR or the OR Contractor have zero obligation to do so, upstairs where the extension phone socket is and that cable goes back to the main socket somehow, do you have mains power at that location to power the hub and the ONT? And you could try to fish a draw string down to the entry point before THEY get there for the install, if it's easy to do then they will try to fish the cable up for you, but trust me, time limited installation and they will not waste time doing so for you!

[Pete069]

The current phone cable extesion runs externally already, the location of my computer is a spare bedroom at the front of the house, and the power and phone sockets in the room used by my computer and ancillaries are about 18 inches apart.

I would assume any install would be straightforward as all the hard work, holes previously drilled etc, has been done by OR with my current install.  

I will speak with my neighbour who is an electrician by trade, he will no doubt be able to assist with your idea about a draw string.

Thanks for your reply.

[Chrisee]

@Pete069 the only person who can confirm wherher what you want iis possible will be the engineer on the day who can be from Sky, Openreach or one of Openreac's sub-contractors. You have no control over who that will be the probability of doing special work will reduce as you go down that list as the subbies work on a payment per job Most salaried engineers are pretty helpful but are under a time limit..

However the location of the ONT does not dictate where the hub can be located while Sky supply a short ethernet cable to link the two you couldcrun an ethernet cable between downstairs and upstairs with no loss in speed assuming you use Cat5e or better cable.

[JimM1]

@Pete069 You would be well advised to have your electrician friend look at removing the redundant OR Extension socket replacing it with a RJ45 socket and pulling out the old extension cable at the same time pulling in a cat 5e replacement cable then new RJ45 socket down next to your OR Master socket, couple off Etherent patch cables to patch the ONT and the Hub where you have it now. 

You are asking far to much for the Fibre to be run where you want it, OR engineer may do but a contractor will tell you to get lost it's going down next to the OR Master socket location IF you have a power socket near that location. Some OR Contractors are by the book, this is the way OR want it so that's how you are getting it, simple end off story then if you don't like it they will walk off site, tell you contact your ISP mark you up as not able to install, and whack you back to the next appointment weeks later!

What you think is simple takes time, and the fibre cable is way more delicate, surface running is not like sticking on a Phone extension cable, and you really don't want an internal Fibre cable running like that, Ethernet cable yes that is fine, will look very much like your existing extension but the cable is just little bit larger than the Phone cable diameter wise! 

[Pete069 · Accepted solution]

Thanks for your replies everyone, I am a bit wiser and will discuss this over the weekend with my electrian neighbour.

TBH ethernet cable would seem to the best and simplest solution.