BT Full Fibre - Hub on secondary socket not master ?

[blackscooby]

Hi,

We are just in the process of moving over from BT Broadband (standard) to BT Full Fibre as they call it. Basically FTTP.

Our main socket is under the stairs (which is where the fibre will be terminated by BT I'm guessing)

Our BT Hub currently hangs off a BT extension socket in the living room. In an ideal world I'd like to keep it there as there's a ton of kit hanging off the back of it. (TV, Raspberry Pi's, Xbox etc etc, all rj45'd directly to the hub).

Would we need to have someone put in fibre from the main socket to the extension socket to keep our BT Hub in the living room ?
Or could we leave it as is and leave the Hub connected to the extension socket ?

Thanks
BS

[Mr Pointy]

Openreach need to install the new termination box (ONT) close to a mains outlet so that may dictate where it is fitted. If they can get the fibre to where your exisiting secondary box & hub are then they might agree to install it there but if they cannot then you'll need an Ethernet cable from the ONT to where your hub is. Have a look at some pictures before you decide to have the ONT in your living room:
https://duckduckgo.com/?t=ffab&q=bt+fttp+insta...

I'm not sure what they do with the existing internal copper voice wiring - they may modify the master unit so it feeds the copper voice phones into the ONT but I'm not getting much luck with searches. They may just drop it off & expect you to go VOIP since all the copper voice network is (supposed) to be turned off in 2025.

[Ronstein]

Mr Pointy said:

Openreach need to install the new termination box (ONT) close to a mains outlet so that may dictate where it is fitted. If they can get the fibre to where your exisiting secondary box & hub are then they might agree to install it there but if they cannot then you'll need an Ethernet cable from the ONT to where your hub is. Have a look at some pictures before you decide to have the ONT in your living room:
https://duckduckgo.com/?t=ffab&q=bt+fttp+insta...

I'm not sure what they do with the existing internal copper voice wiring - they may modify the master unit so it feeds the copper voice phones into the ONT but I'm not getting much luck with searches. They may just drop it off & expect you to go VOIP since all the copper voice network is (supposed) to be turned off in 2025.

This, we had BT FTTP installed around 11 months ago and in April we got a communication that the phone was going digital in a few weeks and the copper line being cut off. There's a socket on the back of the Fibre router that's covered with a sticker. When they tell you to, you remove the sticker and plug your main phone in there. If you have copper phone points around the house, they'll be obsolete.

Fibre to the building doesn't use any existing infrastructure, it's a completely new install, so it can be terminated anywhere you choose (within reason). Ours was an overhead cable from a telegraph pole on the other side of the lane into my home office.

[blackscooby]

Mr Pointy said:

Openreach need to install the new termination box (ONT) close to a mains outlet so that may dictate where it is fitted. If they can get the fibre to where your exisiting secondary box & hub are then they might agree to install it there but if they cannot then you'll need an Ethernet cable from the ONT to where your hub is. Have a look at some pictures before you decide to have the ONT in your living room:
https://duckduckgo.com/?t=ffab&q=bt+fttp+insta...

I'm not sure what they do with the existing internal copper voice wiring - they may modify the master unit so it feeds the copper voice phones into the ONT but I'm not getting much luck with searches. They may just drop it off & expect you to go VOIP since all the copper voice network is (supposed) to be turned off in 2025.

New ONT Box - bloody hell, I'll be constructing a new "cupboard" to hide it in.
The reason the existing Hub is behind the TV is so that it's a neater install with all my Pi's living in the TV cabinet (VPN Pi, General Web hosting Pi, plus all the Xbox stuff).
Mrs BS is gonna go mental when that turns up and is plugged in the hall....such is the cost of progress

[anonymous-user]

Mr Pointy said:

I'm not sure what they do with the existing internal copper voice wiring - they may modify the master unit so it feeds the copper voice phones into the ONT but I'm not getting much luck with searches. They may just drop it off & expect you to go VOIP since all the copper voice network is (supposed) to be turned off in 2025.

They had a version of the NTE that has a switch fitted, this isolates the copper incoming pair so you can "back feed" the telephone port from the ONT back into your old wiring for phones. If your master doesn't have the switch you could simply remove the incoming pair and back feed once that has been done (& your phone works from the ONT). You'll need a patch lead to do this.

[JonnyWhitters]

Do BT still insist you take a phone line and line rental package with their FTTP product?

[quinny100]

JonnyWhitters said:

Do BT still insist you take a phone line and line rental package with their FTTP product?

No. PSTN phone lines will be gone by 2025 (in theory). Your ISP might provide a VOIP service via a port on their CPE (router) as part of the package.

Much like email, my view is that you are far better served having a VOIP service separate to your ISP in order to make the migration between ISP's far easier.

[anonymous-user]

Dave_ST220 said:

Mr Pointy said:

I'm not sure what they do with the existing internal copper voice wiring - they may modify the master unit so it feeds the copper voice phones into the ONT but I'm not getting much luck with searches. They may just drop it off & expect you to go VOIP since all the copper voice network is (supposed) to be turned off in 2025.

They had a version of the NTE that has a switch fitted, this isolates the copper incoming pair so you can "back feed" the telephone port from the ONT back into your old wiring for phones. If your master doesn't have the switch you could simply remove the incoming pair and back feed once that has been done (& your phone works from the ONT). You'll need a patch lead to do this.

Looks like the new ONT don't have any analogue ports, they now come with a VoIP setup to connect handsets to the service. Copper wiring will be a thing of the past....in theory

[NDA]

JonnyWhitters said:

Do BT still insist you take a phone line and line rental package with their FTTP product?

As above, I am told they do not.

But they did last year - I had an almighty row with them as I did not want a copper landline, or any landline. BT threatened to cut me off if I refused a landline. Ridiculous when the BT Hub has a phone socket in the back of it and runs fine (assuming you use it) with a FTTP package. I now have an unwanted landline to go with my FTTP.

[Sheepshanks]

JonnyWhitters said:

Do BT still insist you take a phone line and line rental package with their FTTP product?

I might be missing something but I was looking at the packages offered the other day and you can select with or without phone service - but the cost stayed the same!

[Mr Pointy]

Dave_ST220 said:

Looks like the new ONT don't have any analogue ports, they now come with a VoIP setup to connect handsets to the service. Copper wiring will be a thing of the past....in theory

I know lots of people say it will be delayed but this analogue copper switch off has all the makings of a massive clusterfark if it does go ahead. While there are posters on here who say "I don't want a phone line" equally there are millions of households who do use them - the elderly in particular. There are also a large number of devices like alarm panels & POS credit card readers that still dial up - I used one only last week at a local pharmacy.

I can see a lot of work for ex-BT installers running new cabling around both domestic & commercial premises.

[Freakuk]

The BT FTTP box isn't that big probably 6 inches square by about an inch deep, mine is wall mounted hidden behind the TV cabinet.

I had FTTP installed in a new barn conversion (we had no phone line, as in no copper wire run to the property) so it was easy for me to dictate to the Open Reach guy where I wanted the fibre to enter the property and be terminated, I'm sure as you will have no reliance on your old copper connectivity they should be able to route the fibre to a better more convenient location if you ask.

[Sheepshanks]

Freakuk said:

The BT FTTP box isn't that big probably 6 inches square by about an inch deep, mine is wall mounted hidden behind the TV cabinet.

I've seen them in new builds in the living room positioned where the expect the TV to go - like where the aerial socket is. Fine if it's OK there, but I imagine a right faff if it's not.

[quinny100]

Mr Pointy said:

I know lots of people say it will be delayed but this analogue copper switch off has all the makings of a massive clusterfark if it does go ahead. While there are posters on here who say "I don't want a phone line" equally there are millions of households who do use them - the elderly in particular. There are also a large number of devices like alarm panels & POS credit card readers that still dial up - I used one only last week at a local pharmacy.

I can see a lot of work for ex-BT installers running new cabling around both domestic & commercial premises.

Alarm panels and PDQ are easily solved either using mobile connections or there are data connected versions readily available.

The elderly will have to use ATA's - analogue telephone adaptors. Much like with the digital TV switchover, there will be a few people who can make a lifestyle business in every town helping out with this.

A pair of copper wires between the premises and the exchange will cease to be a thing. In areas not covered by FTTP, the copper will stop at the cabinet and very low bandwidth data products will be used to allow CP's to provide a voice service at similar costs to existing line rental charges.

What most people aren't aware of is that the fibre feeds to the cabinet (and FTTP) often don't go back to the local exchange, but to a collector exchange which covers a larger area.

There are massive vested interests because this change is the first step along the road which will enable a reduction in the numbers of telephone exchanges from about 4000 down to around 1000. This is happening from 2030 - the first tranche of exchanges to go has already been announced which are allegedly those with very high running costs, although the ones I am familiar with on the list appear to me to be sites which have a substantial capital value when they can be sold off. Across the whole exchange estate there is probably billions to be made - BT flogged the estate to a third party a few years ago to raise some capital but I believe there is some sort of profit share arrangement as part of the deal.

[Sheepshanks]

quinny100 said:

A pair of copper wires between the premises and the exchange will cease to be a thing.

The copper connection cabinets are quite well hidden but the FTTC boxes blight our village - there's two quite hefty ones on the grass verge just along from my house. Presumably they'll all be taken away (the whole village was fibred up during the first lockdown)?

[Mr Pointy]

quinny100 said:

Alarm panels and PDQ are easily solved either using mobile connections or there are data connected versions readily available.

You say "readily available" but a very substantial number of devices will be too old to be modified & will need to be replaced. Can you confirm BT/Openreach are going to contact all of the owners & offer to pay all the costs of upgrading existing equipment?

[quinny100]

Sheepshanks said:

The copper connection cabinets are quite well hidden but the FTTC boxes blight our village - there's two quite hefty ones on the grass verge just along from my house. Presumably they'll all be taken away (the whole village was fibred up during the first lockdown)?

I would imagine so, the end game is a full fibre infrastructure. Once an area served by an exchange is fully fibred up there will be a copper stop-sell and "fault to fibre" will be implemented, which means Openreach will no longer be required to fix copper faults and the customer will need to move to a service delivered over fibre.

[quinny100]

Mr Pointy said:

You say "readily available" but a very substantial number of devices will be too old to be modified & will need to be replaced. Can you confirm BT/Openreach are going to contact all of the owners & offer to pay all the costs of upgrading existing equipment?

Of course they're not going to pay for end users equipment upgrades. Nothing lasts forever.

Openreach are in a good position - it's not their problem to migrate customers services, that's for the CP's to deal with.

I'm far from an expert on alarm panels, but all of the ones I've seen have used a separate comms board/module that this connected to signalling terminals on the panel itself. The comms modules are fairly generic and can be replaced with GSM or IP units. Anything that needs a direct connection to a phone line should work through an ATA, which cost about £35.

[JonnyWhitters]

Cheers for all the replies here.

I too had an almighty row with BT and flounced off last September after I found they were charging me for a landline I had never wanted nor required. My relatively new housing development didn’t have many options, BT had the monopoly here and as soon as I found out TalkTalk would do the superfast without a landline attached it made so much sense to swap.

BT had a fair amount of money out of me totally unnecessarily and I’m pleased to see they’re amending their proposition now.

Neither their customer service team nor marketing dept were interested.

[NDA]

JonnyWhitters said:

Cheers for all the replies here.

I too had an almighty row with BT and flounced off last September after I found they were charging me for a landline I had never wanted nor required. My relatively new housing development didn’t have many options, BT had the monopoly here and as soon as I found out TalkTalk would do the superfast without a landline attached it made so much sense to swap.

BT had a fair amount of money out of me totally unnecessarily and I’m pleased to see they’re amending their proposition now.

Neither their customer service team nor marketing dept were interested.

Yep.

I did my 'email to the CEO' thing which seemed to work out (sort of) as I had the landline, but don't have to pay for it if it's unused.

Forcing a landline on consumers is, I assume, a way of keeping a potential revenue stream open.

BT, even at CEO level, could not explain why they insist on FTTP customers having a landline - there is absolutely no logic to it. I haven't used a landline for maybe 10 years - just broadband. That's all I need.