Want Fiber Internet? Watch This First!

[@Scooplar]

We've had fibre to the home since at least 2016 here in NZ, I have had gigabit since 2017. In certain areas of NZ you can get 2, 4 and 8 Gbit/s "Hyperfibre"

[@Scooplar]

Main drama with installers is they refuse to install the ONT in a bedroom as they had too many complaints about the blinking lights where people sleep

[@MetaphysicalEngineer]

One of my friends in a pretty rural area of the USA got fiber more than a decade ago. That 200+ year old farmhouse way out in the sticks had better connection than my parents' place close to a major city. Somewhat relatable about the lights. One of my PC monitors has a very bright blue power light that bugged my lady at night so had to put a piece of tape over it!

[@PeterHonig.]

In preparation for the fiber installation on our farm, I installed 70 feet of 1/2 inch PVC conduit and ran a pull cord through it so the installation was a breeze! By using a conduit, I was able to do a direct run from the junction box on the outer wall of my house to the network rack in my telecom closet, assuring that there could be not be any chance of a pinched, cut, or kinked fiber cable. It is very important not to exceed the minimum bend radius, as a small radius in fiber results in data loss and therefore lower throughput. I installed the conduit myself so my only cost was my time and materials, and I don't know what it would cost someone to hire an electrician to do the job. However, I feel that conduit should always be used to get the best quality and longevity from your fiber line.

[@MetaphysicalEngineer]

If I had known how limited the installer actually would be, I'd have definitely set up pulling tools ahead of time! Didn't use conduit but do have everything strapped up in the attic now so can't flop around or chafe against anything. As is the sharp edges of the vent would have sliced the cable apart in a matter of months. How's the fiber been working for you? How long ago did you get it installed?

[@PeterHonig.]

@@MetaphysicalEngineer I have been on fiber since the beginning of May this year and I couldn't be happier. Here in southern Vermont, we have Fidium (Consolidated Communications) as our provider, and though they offer much faster throughput, I went with their lowest speed of 100 Gbps which is plenty for our household (I can always go much higher if I want to pay more). Having fiber is awesome, especially since there is no line interference as with the VDSL service that we had before. Another nice thing about our fiber service is that even though the IP address that we have is not static, it is "sticky" so I always know how to access my system from the public side via VPN. By "sticky", I mean that it does not normally change. Anyway, I hope you are enjoying your fiber service!

[@crazysquirrel9425]

Catwalk is a 100% MUST HAVE! They could have tied the cable to the fiber cable and pulled it that way. Think fish tape in a way.

[@Dexter-gy6yx]

I work for a big telecom company and we have never done attics, do to it being a safety hazard and for any car less to cause any damage with a the wrong step. Instead of you filling out a form saying damages won’t be covered if a mishap they just don’t let us touch it. But hey if you want to run the wire by all means

[@MetaphysicalEngineer]

Thanks for the insight! Interesting to see the approaches certain trades have. I totally get it from a safety/liability perspective. Attics are plenty dangerous. Confined space, entanglement, fall hazard, thermal hazard, etc. Worked HVAC so quite familiar with that working environment. My point is this represented a major communication breakdown between the customer info to prepare for the install and what the installer actually could/would do. From my perspective this was one of the easiest attic pulls possible and all the info we got beforehand said that it was doable. What would be the solution if had I not been able to pull cables myself, and if the existing coax was missing or unusable for MoCA? ONT on exterior of house and router in the garage? Great if I wanted to stream from my workbench but terrible for signal everywhere else!

[@ai-aniverse]

make sense given you have no ideal what the heck you might find in an attic.

[@just42tube]

​@@MetaphysicalEngineer All the operators I know of in my country have a better process to communicate with their customers about the installation. They are not perfect at all, but the basics to enable and streamlining of installations are important for their business too so they care. Operators subcontract installation companies, which have it as their core businesses and plenty of experience. They know and follow relevant regulations well enough to protect themselves from difficult responsibilities. While doing that they also protect their customers.

[@Dexter-gy6yx]

@@MetaphysicalEngineer The thing is every house is different so it varies drastically depending on the sanario( Is the fibre network arial or buried?/ What side of the house can we bring the wire too./ Do you have a fishished or unfinished basement or even drop ceiling?/ Is there any conduit in the walls?) Sometimes we have no choice to put the fibre in a back corner of the house. Especially if some customers don’t want wires running around they’re house. As a technician I try to find middle ground with customers on where we can and can’t put it and help then get to a spot they are okay or happy with. Lastly for what the sales person said what can be done is never true. We run into this issue daily as well and I hate all the misleading information! Sadly I am unable to do anything but explain the the customer at the time what’s possible.

[@MetaphysicalEngineer]

Certainly a management / sales communication issue. If they'd given any indication anywhere that attic work could be problematic, I'd have had my fish tape and knee pads ready when the installer showed up! Maybe I'm spoiled since I learned how to do sales and size ups for my HVAC job, even if just getting basic info about type of structure, estimated attic or crawl distance and conditions, where things would enter and where it needed to go inside.

[@marshyspudder]

"Cheeseburger units" X'D

[@just42tube]

In my country cabling is put underground in a protective pipe and telephone poles are historic memories. Operators bring cabling indoors through a cable conduit. It comes into technical spaces in the basement or through a wall to the first floor depending on what the owner wants and the type of building it is. It would be a very unusual situation when something is put hanging in the air. Perhaps a historic protected building where there already is a cable in the air and digging or making a new hole to the building wouldn't be allowed.

[@AlexKarasev]

In my country a drone now pulls the single-mode fiber optic cable through the air to a new customer from 5km away.

[@just42tube]

@@AlexKarasev Sounds like a battle ground, where temporary installations need to be done and other factors have less priority.

[@MetaphysicalEngineer]

You're right; this is an old neighborhood. Not historically protected, but built in the 1960s. Around here most older and residential construction has overhead lines, while newer and more urban areas have all utilities underground. Basements are quite rare here too; this house is built on a concrete slab with no basement or crawl space underneath. All plumbing, electrical, etc runs through the attic.

[@just42tube]

@@MetaphysicalEngineer All plumbing thru the attic - that was a new idea for me.

[@ai-aniverse]

@@AlexKarasev well now I’m curious about where you live

[@TdrSld]

Low Voltage Tech here (Retired), the reason for the LOOOOOONNNGGGGG fiber is they use pre-terminated cables. When we FINALLY got fiber out here and someone other than SPECTRUM (thank god, they were killing me on $$$ for next to nothing for speed). They asked me where abouts I wanted the ONT and how far it was from the injection point (D-mark). I told them it was 130' from were the D-mark was on the side of the house to my server closet. They were not happy because after 120' they could only place orders at 100' lengths added, so I ended up with a 200' cable. So I had to mount a cable spool box in the server closet to eat up almost 70' of extra line lol. As for the no attic work, I can understand it. Todays techs are scary bad at their jobs, yell I had to actually install my parents alarm because the the two techs they sent didn't even know how to wire a take over module for a G2 alarm panel. Hell they didn't even know how to diag a bad reed switch for a door sensor, it was crazy both of them swore they had been doing this for at least 6 years. Mind you I had only been out of the game for 5 years at that point. So it wasn't like wireless alarm panels were the norm yet. (2016 is when all this happened)

[@MetaphysicalEngineer]

Interesting! I figured it was pre terminated, though the installer who strung the cable from the pole had a measuring wheel. Maybe it was a case where we fell between lengths so had to give us extra! Not shown in video but I carefully hung that extra coil in the attic where it can't get tangled or trampled. As for techs not doing jobs properly, that's an everywhere problem. When I did HVAC I ran into so many second opinion calls where small issues had been messed up into major ones. Or cases where homeowners had been given a fear mongering three page list of problems to address that totaled a significant chunk of the cost of a system replacement which they were not in a position to pay at the time. That "tech" missed the two actual glaring issues which I was able to fix with the standard spare parts in the truck. Happy homeowners, and we got another system replacement job in that neighborhood from their recommendations.

[@crazysquirrel9425]

Not hard to do a fiber termination on site. Not much different than a cable termination.

[@TdrSld]

@@crazysquirrel9425 No its not, but you have to understand that most of the "Techs" are nothing more than hardware installers. Most don't even know how to terminate a CAT cable let alone fiber.

[@crazysquirrel9425]

@@TdrSld Maybe they should make fiber plug and play? Cut end and shove it into a fiber optic socket then tighten the ferrule with your thumb?

[@TdrSld]

@@crazysquirrel9425 Making fiber terminations is not that simple. Despite what you mite think fiber is actually a very thin glass string. So when you cut it the cut is very ruff on an optical level. So after cutting it you have to polish the cut end before putting the termination goes on it. There are many ways to go the polishing but for a basic tech it's not worth the time for him or the company to have him do it on site for you cable.

[@bruhty9504]

You use a terminal box for you to detach the fiber optic when you need to do home renovation.

[@Phil-D83]

Need to silicone the hole (or sprayfoam) to seal the air leakage

[@MetaphysicalEngineer]

Agreed. Only didn't yet since that area will be remodeled soon(tm) and the actual placement of cables may change. There will be a video about that part coming when it happens. Looking to put in hardwired ethernet to a few rooms too.

[@seen-bc9eq]

Fun Fact: in India(Delhi) I am paying 70 dollars for this fiber to my home and 30 dollars for optional static IP, Annually. The subscription is on monthly basis so no committing headache and guy comes every month to collect cash!

[@ketas]

why put fiber into attic vent? instead of dedicated hole. since you can't relocate it, assuming it needed splices too. unsure totally different country here, but here i insisted i'll do internal myself. and even had to redo the overhead entry as it gave way somewhat somehow due poor placement of screw hook hell with such installs, i didn't complain about that, just fixed it on my own

[@MetaphysicalEngineer]

The installer went with the easiest route where the (much older, well before we moved in) coax was routed. I didn't touch the fiber before since I didn't want to get blamed for breaking it. When the installer is supposed to do the install, I boldly and quite incorrectly expected them to "come prepared with everything they need". How wrong I was!

[@TheAIKnowledgeHub]

I think it is a installer thing. If the installer isn't ok with doing it, then they won't. It might be less about being lazy and more about a bad experience or something mental like being in a closed space like that. Then again, they really might have a policy on it.

[@MetaphysicalEngineer]

Sounding more and more like a policy thing. From a safety standpoint as someone who's worked in attics a lot, I can agree that attics are dangerous. From a "train people to do the job they will be expected to do" standpoint, it's silly that we might have had to hire a separate installer if I'd been unable to pull the cable myself, after the customer info claimed the installer would handle the rest assuming there was power. This is an extremely typical layout for residential construction in the area.

[@valdarmort]

you want fiber at home .by a box of cereal ..

[@MetaphysicalEngineer]

Of course! Why didn't I think of that? Thanks for the laugh!

[@yoppindia]

if you had bribed him, him he would have done the attic.

[@westtell4]

i got my fiber installed... last year in December the company rolled up with a fleet of truck's and Equipment had the line down underground and me connected and online within 2 hours

[@quintrapnell3605]

Attics are a liability. It is too easy to damage the home or get injured. Also it is not like they get paid extra for pain in the ass jobs. Jobs they have no experience doing like attics they don't service.

[@MetaphysicalEngineer]

I agree attics are dangerous. However, contractors in my area need a minimum of a million bucks of liability insurance against property damage and injury. Even more beyond a certain number of employees / certain volume of sales. That should be the least of their concerns. I had "no experience" in attics when I started my previous HVAC job. I got trained. Once I had experience, I in turn trained new people. Nervous kids who'd never seen the world above the ceilings became deft navigators of the utility spaces. Indicative of systematic problems in throwing untrained people into the field too early, and of major communications breakdown where the customer info for preparing for installs doesn't mention how limited the installers actually will be.

[@spacewolfjr]

Attics are _bourgeois_ ... it's pretty much a top hat for your dwelling

[@MetaphysicalEngineer]

True! I much prefer attics over crawl spaces!

[@ai-aniverse]

or a machinery space. Or storage. Lol what did attics do to you?!

[@ai-aniverse]

Attics are absolutely terrible.

[@manandatractor]

As an ex-electrician I absolutely agree, however I've been in a few nasty ass crawl spaces that make attics a hoiday.

[@ai-aniverse]

@@manandatractor for me attics 'win' just because of the heat lmao. But squeezing my 6'2 frame under my parents house has always been... interesting. Never had to do it on the job except in the NAVY and at least those are maintained lol

[@BaronOfDaker]

Lol helloooooooo Eastlink

[@BaronOfDaker]

No shade on the tech, it's a thankless job. When I worked for Rogers, we didn't work in attics, and this was a decade ago.

[@JasonsLabVideos]

Attic's are fun! Just have to be brave ! I only do Attic work when cooler mid summer. Id rather be cold then hot thats for sure !

[@MetaphysicalEngineer]

Quite true! I'm glad it's been relatively mild here. I know all too well how hot it can get up there.

[@Spl1ntMan]

we dont do attics, no worries m8 ill call a professional lol

[@MetaphysicalEngineer]

Yeah in another case we might have had to call *another* installer to finish what the ISP customer info said their techs would do. For all the annoying bits, my previous job taught me a ton of useful skills.