Extending Fibre Optic Cable?

[Pistaaah]

We have a fibre broadband service to our house which we are currently in the process of refurbishing and the cable terminates into a "BT box", from a pole in the garden. The service is not "live" as whilst doing our refurbishment, we are living in a cottage, which is approx 70m away where we currently have an EE SIM card in a router, on a data only plan. This works most of the time, but is not that reliable, e.g. we cannot stream TV when the network is busy, so we are looking to change to Fibre.

My question is twofold: can we run an extension cable from the incoming point on the house, to the cottage and have the router inside, fairly simply?. I have seen 90m fibre extension cables on the internet and various connectors, but don't want to sign up for 2 years of broadband and then find it doesn't work in the cottage. Also, if it has to be done by Openreach, for example, we don't want a new permanent cable to the cottage and all the requisite telegraph poles etc.

Secondly, once we move into the main house, can we then run two buildings off the existing service? - I am assuming we can or surely we wouldn't need another cable from the pole to the cottage and another subscription etc?

Hope someone cleverer than me can help.

[IAmTheWalrus]

Your BT box that receives the fibre optics should ideally have RJ45 ethernet cable outlets, these cables can work up to 100 metres. Whether you can find one that long I don’t know but certainly 50meter ones are easily available. You may need to use a booster box i.e. a powered router if you are using more than one cable to make it up to the 70metres you have. You could alternatively use a wifi booster extender as a way to extend the BT box (assuming it has wifi) to get the signal as wifi to the cottage.

Edited by IAmTheWalrus on Sunday 23 February 11:34

[Mr Pointy]

Post a picture of the "BT box" as that might help identify if it just the fibre termination point or if it's more than that. As said if you can find somwhere safe enough & that has power then Openreach can activate your fibre connection in the house & then you can run either a network cable to the cottage or a point-to point wireless connection, which might be easier.

If you want to link the cottage permanently then again you could use a wireless link or run in a cable duct & a network cable.

See this thread as an example of long distance wifi:

https://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?h=0&...

Edited by Mr Pointy on Sunday 23 February 11:43

[Dave Hedgehog]

100m exteior cat 6 cable into the BT box / Router

https://www.amazon.co.uk/VOIETOLT-Outdoor-Ethernet...

in the other building plug the cable into WiFI a Router

https://www.amazon.co.uk/TP-Link-Dual-Core-Cyberse...

or if its a larger building or stuggles with singal loss a WiFi Mesh

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Deco-M4-Seamless-Coverage...

You could make this permanent


these are examples, cheaper alternatives are availalble

[Dave Hedgehog]

and if you dont want to use a cable to the other building wifi bridges work well

https://www.amazon.co.uk/BrosTrend-Wireless-Bridge...

[eliot]

as others stated, the box should have an RJ45 ethernet port on it - just extend that to your other building and put a wifi box on the end of it.

[Smurfsarepeopletoo]

Depends on which box your talking about, if its the box on the outside of the house, then the fibre from the pole/pit will end there, and then be spliced to a little white box inside, if you don't have the little white box inside, then unless you are able to splice fibre, then you wont be able to do anything with it.

If you have the little white box inside, you have 2 options, either buy some extension fibre and the relevant connectors (sc on the end of BT fibre I believe) and relocate the little white box down the garden, however, you will need to figure out how to get the fibre down there, you would either need to run it overhead, or dig a channel, fit some rigid ducting, and run it in the ducting, as if its underground and not protected, it will likely break.

Or alternatively, buy a little ethernet switch, ethernet from the white internal box to the switch, then run an ethernet down the garden to the router in there, and also run a ethernet to the router in the house, and you will have wifi in both properties, and the ethernet is more durable than the fibre.

[Pistaaah]

Thanks for all the replies so far - this is the Openreach box where the fibre comes to the building:

A cable then comes out of this box and terminates dates with this:


Dave which would you think would be the more reliable - cable or the wireless bridge?

Again thanks all

[Gary C]

cant quite see but I think its an SC SPC connector ? and you can in theory extend if its got the power budget to make it, but it should be able.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Armored-Internet-Single-L...

[Buzz84]

Pistaaah said:

Thanks for all the replies so far - this is the Openreach box where the fibre comes to the building:

A cable then comes out of this box and terminates dates with this:




Dave which would you think would be the more reliable - cable or the wireless bridge?

Again thanks all

Looks like you are missing the fibre modem if that's all you have, you need to take out a broadband contract and they will provide one that will plug into the end of the fibre.
(I don't have fibre but its always been the ISP that's provide the modem with copper broadband supplies)

Then from there you can use a long ethernet cable or a WiFi bridge etc to go from the fibre modem to the cottage.

[Mr Pointy]

Ok, you've got the first item needed which is the Customer Service Point - where the incoming fibre is sliced on to a cable with the connector on the end. That usually goes indoors & is plugged into the Optical Network Termination - where the fibre is turned into a copper RJ45 connection. You then connect that copper connection to your broadband router.

I suspect it's highly unlikley that Openreach would commission an installation with a fibre extension cable, especially one that you have run it. You need to decide if the you want to go to the extent of digging a trench & running ducting to pull a network cable over to the cottage or if wireless will be adequate - if you look at that other thread then there are solutions that will give a very decent connection & you won't have to dig a 70m trench

[bitchstewie]

I'd look to get a cable wherever you're able to.

Doesn't need to be copper you can get media converters and go copper to fibre to copper etc.

It's more boxes so more to go wrong but I think I'd take it over wi-fi unless you're just doing stuff like web browsing where any issues might not be super noticeable.

[Murph7355]

Mr Pointy said:

...
I suspect it's highly unlikley that Openreach would commission an installation with a fibre extension cable, especially one that you have run it. You need to decide if the you want to go to the extent of digging a trench & running ducting to pull a network cable over to the cottage or if wireless will be adequate - if you look at that other thread then there are solutions that will give a very decent connection & you won't have to dig a 70m trench

I agree with this, and use a wireless bridge myself.

BS is right in that a cable would notionally be better, but running them between external buildings can be a ball ache.

[Rausages]

How to

https://www.premitel.uk/uncategorized/how-to-reloc...

They also sell cable/wall boxes up to 30m. If you got in touch I am sure they could do a longer one.

https://shop.premitel.uk/product/fibre-termination...

[Dave_V6]

Whatever you do avoid that cable from Amazon.

CCA is NOT CAT6!

[camel_landy]

Don't bother with a temporary extension, just jump straight into fixing up both buildings to use the same link.

Leave the BT fibre as is, connect the BT hub into a managed switch/firewall/router, run fibre/copper between both buildings and install another switch/router there.

M

[theboss]

I doubt very much Openreach will accept any extension to the fibre as that constitutes their network which is part of a passive optical network shared between neighbours. They hand off to the customer at the RJ45 port on their NTE box. If there's a duct in place they may well utilise it to put the NTE in another location but it sounds like you want that to remain in the original location along with your router etc, with the cottage served by a fibre or copper extension.

If it's 70m of your own land and it's soft I'd really try and make the effort to install a conduit, it's ballache undeniably but once done properly you can run any type of cable and forget about it.

I have recently installed a similar length of copper between my home office and garage (the latter where fibre terminates), fibre might have been more desirable from an electrical isolation point of view, a close lightning strike could induct a surge for example, but fibre is also delicate and unless you're geared up for splicing and terminating it yourself you would need to buy pre-terminated with a pulling sock which you aren't going to just rod through a 10mm hole in the side of your wall.

[Davie]

The missing link appears to be the ONT (ie the new fibre master socket) which is replacing the original copper Openreach NTE's in properties. You have the opti-tap connection, but not the ONT? It's about the same size as an old NTE, it's also white but is powered. It converts the fibre to an RJ45 output, ie your router connects to this ONT by way of an ethernet cable.

If said ONT is missing then you'll need to approach your internet provider and arrange an installation date for the new fibre package, granted the cabling appears to be in place (and hopefully all ok) however if the ONT is missing then you'll need an engineer visit to supply and activate a new one. Once in place and the service is working, you can run as long an ethernet cable as you want... that'd be the easiest way to extend to another building assuming that wi-fi alone won't suffice?

You can't extend the fibre, the order will be placed for that property and whilst an engineer could run a new internal cable from the grey CSP on the wall and move the ONT position within the property if requested... it can't be run 70m underground to a separate property. Wi-fi and / or a big ethernet cable would be the best "temporary" solution assuming of course you have FTTP up and running in the original house, which I'm not sure you do?

Once you move back in, same situation... you can't split the fibre feed to property 1 and extend it to property 2. Basically there's a single fibre feed to your original property, it feeds a single ONT and that's your service. If you wanted a second service to the cottage, it'd need to be a legit address and you'd have to order FTTP for that property and it would the get it's own fibre feed, CSP and ONT. To "share" the service that's installed at the original property, again you'd need to work something out after the ONT, ie Wi-fi and / or ethernet cable out to the cottage

Edited by Davie on Tuesday 25th February 15:05