What optical connector does Vodafone's Gigafast ONT use?

[No Name]

Hi all,

Having symmetric 500 Mbit Vodafone gigafast installed in December...

As I understand it, a box will be put on the outside wall with an optical connector.

Then a optical patch cable is used to run from this box to a ONT (Optical Network Terminator) powered up inside the house (typically in a downstairs room).

Then an ethernet patch lead runs from the ONT to the Vodafone Router, also powered up inside.

Now I'd rather put the ONT in my loft and connect that to my choice of router.

However as I understand it, Voda Gigafast engineers will not install to anything but a ground floor room plus we have COVID to consider so don't want them spending lots of time in the house.

So What I want to do is buy a pre-made optical fibre with the correct connectors at both ends that I can run from the outside box up to the loft and say that I will put the ONT in my loft under UPS protection (due to supporting an IP telphony solution) and then use the ethernet in place from the loft to the lounge for the vodafone router to connect to for initial setting up.

Then after they have gone, I will then switch to my router of choice which is a Edgerouter with Unifi Wifi AP's

(my main motivations is to (a) avoid holes drilled into lounge from outside annoying SWMBO and (b) to have the kit in the loft under UPS protection rather than add to the kit already in the lounge also annoying SWMBO!)

[Brian Gaff (Sofa]

I'm not so sure that a fibre cable that long for domestic use can be purchased. Brian

[Andy Burns]

I would say you need an SC/APC simplex fibre patch, e.g

[Andy Burns]

It's quite likely to have come tens of kilometers from the exchange, another few tens of metres won't mack much difference.

[Owain Lastname]

The Calix Gigapoint 801Gv2 manual says Single 9/125 µm (single mode) fiber, SC/APC connector

lists the type of ONT used as the above.

Owain

[No Name]

Thank you, thats a really helpful reply!

S.

[No Name]

Now what I need to work out is whether they use the existing BT underground ducting that the BT copper tepehone wire comes through and blow the fibre through there to the BT external box (City fibre have put their street cabinets next to existing BT ducting so presumably have a duct shairng arrangement with BT?)

or whether they actually run a new piece of ducting in my lawn from the BT trunk/main ducting under the pavenment to the external wall box?

[Andy Burns]

Hopefully BT do a better job than virgin did for next-door, dig under garden wall from the box in the road, make slit across the lawn with a half-moon edger and push the fibre down a couple of inches, the wife nearly mowed it a few days later ...

[Dave Liquorice]

As far as pre-terminated fibre cables are concerned it's almost "How long would you like it sir?"

It is a bit of a minefield though between single mode and multimode fibres and large array of connectors being in common use.

If access to the loft is good, ie a proper, sturdy, fixed to the building, loft ladder not a rickety set of steps at the top of the stairs and the loft has decent head room and is boarded out the installers may respond well to to chocolate biscuits and tea/coffee (outside, socially distanced)...

Strikes me as the sort of thing that google ought to cough up a reasonable amont of infor and images about so you can get an idea of what an installation looks like/involves. I've had a quick look and it seems that the external box is probably a coax to fibre converter, as this service is delivered over the existing coax network not FTTP. Where does that get it's power from? The coax, maybe or from the Virgin ONT in which case the cable from the ONT to external box is a hybrid not pure fibre...

[Theo]

The info is out there - although different providers do different things so you need to look for your specific provider.

I'm not sure what you're on about there. The OP is Vodafone, not Virgin. Nobody SFAIK runs coax in the street and fibre in the home - what would be the point? Virgin's coax network terminates at a box on the side of the house, but it's coax internally. Virgin's Project Lightning is FTTP, no coax in the street.

Openreach cables have fibre + a copper pair. I don't think Lightning carries coax as part of the bundle, but I can't check right now. Vodafone don't have a coax network.

Theo

[Andy Burns]

sounds unlikely.

Is the O/P in an openreach location, or a cityfibre location?

[Andy Burns]

IIRC the O/P is Northants based, if so the FTTH bit is provided by CityFibre

That's right we have Lightning in here (well I don't, but it's in the street) there's nothing eletrical in the cabinet, just an incoming bundle of fibres, a patch panel and outgoing tubes to the "toby" near each house, a fibre gets get blown in your tube when you subscribe.

[No Name]

City Fibre location.....

City Fibre have installed streetside cabinets and dugs trenches and put in ducting that links their cabinets to the existing BT ducting (BT put this in after the pavements were tarmaced so thats how I know there is some form of duct sharing in place.

Now I'm intrigued as to whether there is BT ducting from my house wall to the pavement ducting or whether they will put in a Toby box from the pavement ducting and run new ducting to my house wall.

[Andy Burns]

When I had my drive re-done, I discovered the underground drop wire was just shallow buried.

[No Name]

twas the same for my VM shotgun cable...... literally all of 4 inches depth if that......

[Brian Gaff (Sofa]

I said, domestic cable. I'm not disputing the type used for the link, though there are boosters at certain distances. However there are also connector losses. Brian

[Andy Burns]

no boosters, it's a passive optical network, there's a splitter somewhere between the exchange and the homes, but AIUI nothing electronic at all, distance limit 50 to 60km I believe

yes, maybe even a deliberate attenuator if the distance is short.

[John Walliker]

I recently had a fibre leased line installed at an office. The length was a few km and the total upstream and downstream losses were

0.9 and 0.7dB including all splices and connectors. (Different wavelengths of infra-red light are used for the two directions, hence the difference in uplink and downlink losses.

As already mentioned, pre-terminated lengths of fibre for indoor use (and variants for outdoor use and direct burial) are readily available at low cost to order with a wide variety of connector types. There are also lots of standard lengths available from stock. I have bought 30m lengths of pre-terminated duplex single-mode fibre from eBay for a few pounds. You may be thinking of plastic fibre which is used for digital audio. This has a much shorter maximum range than the glass fibre used for internet provision. John

[Kyorin]

They likely won't put it in your loft, but they will install to an upstairs room, or at least they did for me.

[Kyorin]

If you have telegraph poles outside, they run it alongside your existing BT phone cable above ground to your house as far as I can tell.