CityFIbre install at a small block of flats

[timdsmoss]

I enquiring on behalf of a small block of flats (17)

We've approached CityFIbre who have fibre in the street for options to get connected.

They can relatively easily connect from the street to our shared electricity/phoneline room

but from there they would either do

- an "external build": cable to each flat externally running in brown UPC conduit or along tensioned wires. 

- an "Internal build" from the meter room take fibres under the pathways and/or through an internal wall to a distribution box in each of 2 separate stairwells, then from there run fibres attached in corners of the walls to terminating box above and outside the doorway of each flat.

The external build is not going to fly as it would spoil the exterior appearance of the building.

The internal build is slightly tidier but only a little; similar concerns and quite disruptive works.  The actual ISP then still needs to drill through a wall and inside the flat doe something similar with a fibre mounted in corner between wall and ceiling running to wherever the resident wants their router - again a bit messy and disruptive if its hidden in the wall or ceiling.

So remaining option and best one seems to be to make use of existing CAT5 cabling that runs from the meter room to each flat (4 separate cables go to 4 wall ports in each flat) this is currently how phone lines are connected in.

Have flat owners/residents put their router supplied by the ISP into the meter room and connect with CAT5 into the relevant port in the CAT5 patch panel.

Either this or use a pair of media converters

- fibre to CAT5 in the meter room & and CAT5 to fibre in the flat; then router can be in the flat

An additional advantage is that when OpenReach bring fibre to the area in 2024 they too could bring fibre to the meter room and residents could choose from a wider range of ISPs

• but without having 2 lots of digging and 2 lots of fibre running to each flat in the shared internal spaces

anyone have any experience of a solution like this?

any pros/cons?

thanks in advance!

Tim

[Jayach]

If CityFibre, and later Openreach, do decide to supply your flats, they will make their own decisions (possibly in consultation with the owners/managing agents) on how to supply it, it won't be down to you and the other residents.

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@timdsmoss wrote:

The actual ISP then still needs to drill through a wall and inside the flat doe something similar with a fibre mounted in corner between wall and ceiling running to wherever the resident wants their router - again a bit messy and disruptive if its hidden in the wall or ceiling.

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The ISP(s) will have nothing to do with the installation, it will still be down to the firm supplying the Fibre.

[Cynric]

@timdsmoss Also the positioning of the cables has to take building regulations into account. For example an internal cabling path may not be possible if the route would penetrate a structural firewall.

[timdsmoss]

Thankfully the Chartered Surveyor appointed by CityFibre took this into consideration.

- they kind of have to, and have clearly learnt many lessons I'm sure from the hundreds of thousands of installtions they've done to date

The 2x  30+ page proposals cover all these considerations.

Where necessary (if necessary) they've shown the various solutions they would use to ensure that, if required, any breach to a fire wall, fire door etc., would be carried out in a way that meets or suprpasses current ruglatory standards

[timdsmoss]

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@Jayach wrote:

If CityFibre, and later Openreach, do decide to supply your flats, they will make their own decisions (possibly in consultation with the owners/managing agents) on how to supply it, it won't be down to you and the other residents.

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????? Enough of this NONSENSE!
I AM The Dark Lord, also fondly known as The LandLord.
The managing agents, CityFibre, OpenReach WILL 
submit to my will and do whatever I require and only what allow them to.
Failure to do so will result in certain dea…..  bzzzzzt  bzzzzzzt …….

[timdsmoss]

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@timdsmoss wrote:

The actual ISP then still needs to drill through a wall and inside the flat doe something similar with a fibre mounted in corner between wall and ceiling running to wherever the resident wants their router - again a bit messy and disruptive if its hidden in the wall or ceiling.

---

The ISP(s) will have nothing to do with the installation, it will still be down to the firm supplying the Fibre.

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…..  bzzzzzt  bzzzzzzt ……. Excellent! You are back. VF 4G is most unreialable in this galactic sector.

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Hmmmmmmmmmmm. Your news is of grave concern.

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I honoured 3 men from the CityFibre cartel with an hour of my time to present to me the options described before.
 
They were each 100% certain that they would terminate their fibre just outside each dwelling.  
Their detailed plan also showed this.

*Somebody* is spreading misinformation, fear, uncertainty, doubt in an effort to thwart my plans!

They must be in allegiance with those rebel scu…..  bzzzzzt  bzzzzzzt …….

[Jayach]

If the all powerful  broadband suppliers terminate their fibre outside the dwellings, how will the puny humans inside plug in their routers?

Most of them have trouble tying their shoe laces. (hence the invention of "slip-ons")

The ISP's lackeys do not have those abilities.

[timdsmoss]

The CityFibre guys said that the ISPs would essentially outsource the physical install (i.e. connecting from the fibre termination point CityFibre installed - into an individual flat - to a point within reason of the owner's choosing)

The installer would check fundamental end-to-end connectivity and give some basic help getting the ISP's router up and running, to confirm that it too was connecting.

After than would be over to phone/email/online support between the user and the ISP.

Depending on the ISP chosen by the flat owner the installation company used may vary

-here in Cambridge with Vodafone it would be "Kellys" (?)

Presumably these installers have a mutual arrangement between themselves, the ISPs and the fibre provider.

This isn't so different with the situation over the last few years when an ISP was getting a new customer connected to copper based broadband.

If the customer didn't already have broadband working over a phoneline in place, needed a new master socket, or wanted to move its location, then the ISP would arrange a visit from an installation engineer - typically outsourced to OpenReach when dealing with copper phone lines - who would do much the same as described above.

[Ripshod]

Spamming a dodgy link is no help. Mods are aware. 

[Ripshod]

Just thinking about it maybe new members should have to make a certain number of valid posts (not ChatGPT) before they can post links? Is that workable?