Preparing for Fiber Installation

[ChrisW]

Sonic says fiber will be coming to my neighborhood this October! Of course I'm excited, but now I'm starting to wonder about logistics and practicalities, and what I should be doing to prepare.

As with many houses in the Berkeley flats, my PoE is a hole in the exterior wall that accesses a crawl space under the house, with no nearby electrical outlets and with negligible roof overhang for exterior shelter. After passing through the PoE, my phone cable connects to a splitter/filter in the crawl space, with one branch of the splitter supporting the landline circuit and the other supporting DSL service via a Cat5e cable that runs some distance underneath the house to an interior wall jack adjacent to the DSL modem.

When installation time comes, will the Sonic installer run fiber under the house to the wall jack where the modem currently lives, or will the installation end somewhere near the PoE? If the installation extends beyond the PoE, is anything that I've described here likely to trigger an installation charge?

[m.harmon]

Ah that is a tricky one to answer! My first answer would be no. Doesn't look like a charge would be needed but I can't say for certain until our folks are out there knee deep in wires.


Once our field techs are on site they would discuss/work with you the for best way to install and if there would be any charge(still feel it would be pretty unlikely).

[ChrisW]

Thanks for the prompt reply! In cases where it’s not practical to install the ONT near the PoE, does Sonic typically run the fiber through the PoE to an interior wall jack, or what?

[m.harmon]

You would see something like the ONT placed in the best place it can be (most likely a second PoE might need to be made near power) and then Ethernet from there.

[gclie]

I Think I should be able to give you a first-hand experience because I just had one installed yesterday. AT&T is the one who did the installation (they own the fiber optics), but arranged by Sonic. My first installation appoint was a week ago between 11 am and 1 pm, but AT&T guy did not show up until about 6 pm, and NOBODY called me to tell the delay! Of course, it was too late to do anything. AT&T guy said that there was no way to call me because he had only my address.

After my complaint, Sonic made a second appointment for a week later at my requested earliest morning between 9 and 11. AT&T showed up around 10 am and it took him about 3 hours to finish. I did some search for what I needed to prepare to no avail. I did pick up a few fiber installation terms to understand what I might need. According to the speed I requested, I thought I just needed FTTN (fiber to the node) which would come in my house through old telephone line (the last mile) from AT&T fiber line near the house. What surprised me was I actually got FTTP (fiber to the premise, i.e., house). It is probably a better bet in case I want to upgrade to a faster internet in the future. Furthermore, it seems easier to install: They just ran a fiber all the way from the electric pole in my backyard to the side of my house, drew a hole though the wall at the place where I wanted ONT (optical network terminal) to be. ONT was attached to the inside wall of house, and then AT&T supplied modem/router was connected to it via an ethernet cable (RJ45). Both ONT and modem/router need electric power, so definitely you want to make sure they are near an electric outlet. Then just reconnect all my old connection to the new setup. That's it. I don't think you need to prepare anything if the fiber modem/router is going to be place where your old telephone modem/router is because all the need connections are already there. AT&T made sure the signal was there and the said speed before leaving. Ii took me no time to reconfigure my modem/router to my old home network (I need some fixed IP addresses for remote printers).