Computer Related > Broadband - whats involved in installation? Computing Issues
Thread Author: BobbyG Replies: 13
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New Thu 3 Jul 14 19:38 
 Broadband - whats involved in installation? - BobbyG
We have broadband down the telephone line in our shops which is supplied via a third party (the till provider).
We have just closed a shop down, and opened one 400 yards away and are using the same phone number so BT did the switch for us.

To get the broadband on the new line would appear to be a 10 day turnaround and that is business days exc weekends.

What exactly is involved in putting broadband on a phone line? What will someone be doing to facilitate this? Is it a case of pressing a few buttons in an office or does it involve a physical visit / manual work?

Am presently having a fight with my provider over the time and costs involved but would be useful to know what exactly is involved in the process?
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New Thu 3 Jul 14 19:50 
 Broadband - whats involved in installation? - No FM2R
Depends on what is there already.

It may need installation inside the premises - typically a master socket with a filter. It may also require router/modem installation.

It may need connection at the Enclosure (the Green waist high box)

And it may need automated configuration back at the switch.

The 10 day period represents their scheduling approach, not the amount of work involved.

The distance from the previous premises is neither here not there.
Last edited by: No FM2R on Thu 3 Jul 14 at 19:51
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New Thu 3 Jul 14 23:38 
 Broadband - whats involved in installation? - Dulwich Estate
My understanding is as follows:

If you have fibre close to the building then Openreach will connect a new cable (fibre - not copper) from the pole to the exterior wall and place thereupon a dinky box. A week or so later an "engineer" will visit and either accept your internal wiring or will run new wiring from the dinky box to a new main phone socket. The modem gets plugged in and away you go.

If you only have a green box reasonably close by, but your own street is not fibred-up, then the fibre is connected from the exchange to the green box, after which it's the old copper to your premises with no "engineer" visit.

It took me about 3 hours of separate phone calls to various BT people including the special "fibre team" who were particularly dim and less than helpful. Roughly speaking it's only BT that can provide fibre to premises at present and that's the only ISP you can get. If any old ISP can give you fibre then it will only be as far as the green box.
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New Fri 4 Jul 14 00:24 
 Broadband - whats involved in installation? - rtj70
>> My understanding is as follows:
>>
>> If you have fibre close to the building then Openreach will connect a new cable (fibre - not
>> copper) from the pole to the exterior wall and place thereupon a dinky box

FTTP is expensive but faster for sure. FTTC via Openreach is also very fast. And more than fast enough for most uses. Download is about 65MBps at times for me. Upload about 18Mbps.

But for FTTC with the new 'green box nearby' you currently need an Openreach engineer to visit. This is regardless of who you get BT Openreach broadband with.

Dulwich Estate seems to confuse how ADSL broadband and VDSL works. The former used phones lines all the way back to the BT exchange. VDSL (i.e. BT Openreach for us in the UK) is phone line to the cabinet and then fibre.

Dulwich seems to think he should have other options.
Last edited by: rtj70 on Fri 4 Jul 14 at 00:27
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New Fri 4 Jul 14 00:29 
 Broadband - whats involved in installation? - rtj70
And not even Virgin Media with their higher speeds offer fibre to the premises in the UK. Their advantage over BT Openreach is their connection to the home not being twisted pair phone lines. There's still the back haul from street cabinet to head end and onwards.
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New Fri 4 Jul 14 07:14 
 Broadband - whats involved in installation? - Roger.
We have fibre from TalkTalk.
The nearest street cabinet is about 3/4 hundred metres away.
I've just checked on-line whether we can get Infinity and BT say "No" - perhaps by the end of this month.
This appears to confirm that there is a difference in the services.
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New Fri 4 Jul 14 07:52 
 Broadband - whats involved in installation? - smokie
The additional cost to upgrade to Virgin 150mb dropped for me recently to a couple of pounds so I took the plunge. It is really quick, at the moment speedtest shows me 160.84 Mbps download and 12.27 Mbps upload. I am finding I need to reboot the router more regularly to keep it at the top of the scale, but maybe that's something I should always have done.
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New Fri 4 Jul 14 08:04 
 Broadband - whats involved in installation? - Crankcase
I've lost track of whatever my Virgin provided speed is, as I only have iDevices, and they max out at 30-ish Mbps anyway. I think the feed is 100, but what I get out of it is more than fast enough for me anyway. Certainly won't be paying them any money to "upgrade" it, and never have since it was the initial 10 some years ago, which was also always fast enough.

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New Fri 4 Jul 14 17:31 
 Broadband - whats involved in installation? - Alastairw
When virgin upgraded me to 150 the price went down! Only my main PC takes full advantage of the speed, but it would have been rude to refuse the offer imo.
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New Fri 4 Jul 14 18:30 
 Broadband - whats involved in installation? - No FM2R
>>When virgin upgraded me to 150 the price went down

Which makes one wonder what it was in their terms and conditions that they wanted so much to change.

>>Only my main PC takes full advantage of the speed

And I would be surprised if it does. Your speed to home is only part of the route. Still, it is certainly true that more is better.
Last edited by: No FM2R on Fri 4 Jul 14 at 18:31
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New Fri 4 Jul 14 18:56 
 Broadband - whats involved in installation? - rtj70
>> but it would have been rude to refuse the offer imo.

Maybe. But no doubt they have you on a new 12-24 month contract now. So both parties are happy.

I keep checking if Virgin would be cheaper for us - currently have

- BT for phone/broadband (very happy and the faster upload speed useful for working from home)
- Sky for TV (like the interface better than the previous Virgin Media STB - but not tried TiVO) and can watch on mobile, in other rooms on computer/tablet etc.

Ironically got Virgin Media (NTL at the time) in the previous house a long time ago because they did multi-room and Sky didn't then. To stop arguing teenagers it was worth the extra cost. And at one point I was paying well over £100pm! And when we did get cable broadband it was originally only 512MBps for £25/month!!! This was 2001 mind.
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New Sat 5 Jul 14 11:02 
 Broadband - whats involved in installation? - Stuartli
>>And not even Virgin Media with their higher speeds offer fibre to the premises in the UK.>>

My road was provided with fibre optic cabling by Telewest around 20 years ago and is now operated by Virgin. Do you mean that the cable from the street to a property is not a continuation of fibre optic cable?
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New Sat 5 Jul 14 19:09 
 Broadband - whats involved in installation? - rtj70
>> Do you mean that the cable from the street to a property is not a continuation of fibre optic cable?

Correct - it's not fibre to the property. But Virgin like to make you think it is. From the street cabinet it's coax cable.

There are similarities between VDSL (the BT Openreach fibre to the cabinet technology) and the cable TV platform. But the cable being coax instead of the phone line twisted pair makes a big difference. Hence higher speeds possible from Virgin Media.

What gave cable the advantage for so long was the cable from the house to fibre connected cabinet was much shorter than ADSL having to go all the way to the Exchange. But VDSL is to cabinet as well.
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New Fri 4 Jul 14 08:25 
 Broadband - whats involved in installation? - Dulwich Estate
"Dulwich Estate seems to confuse how ADSL broadband and VDSL works. The former used phones lines all the way back to the BT exchange. VDSL (i.e. BT Openreach for us in the UK) is phone line to the cabinet and then fibre.

Dulwich seems to think he should have other options. "


Dulwich is no fool and attempted to put across his knowledge simply.

Dulwich is insulted by your attitude.


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