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Possible new CF customer

Whitemonk

Regular Member
A group of guys armed with power drills and ladders have just brought fibre to our block of low rise flats. We now have a loop of coiled up fibre hanging outside, adjacent to our second floor lounge window. The following day, a letter dropped on our doormat, inviting us to register an interest, which we have.

Our first ISP was BT many moons ago with a dial-up modem sharing our landline. Later on, Cable London came along and drilled their hole and we transferred to them, which released our landline for calls only. This was pre-mobile days, Hey-ho. Cable London became Telewest, then Virgin Media. We also transferred our landline to VM and watched their TV. In the meantime, ADSL2 had become available, so we then moved to TalkTalk as our ISP. Several ISPs (and years) later, we have Plusnet as our ISP with their VDSL service, VM still provides our landline (SWMBO doesn't want to loose the number) and recently we got a Sky puck.

There are two main reasons for this post. The first one is should we move to CF as our ISP? They appear to be popular in London and their up-time is good, which is important when you work from home. So far, Plusnet have never gone down during working hours. CF's phone option is not so attractive as we do have family abroad and we like to retain the (unlikely) need to use it for international calls. The loss of phone service during a power cut is not really an issue - the Plusnet Hub 2 and DECT phone both sit on a recently purchased UPS! And is CF's TV option a match for Sky Stream? Due to dish restrictions, we never got Sky Q and their puck really fits the bill here for us.

The other reason for the post is technical. Our flat is rectangular. When built, the landline phone was terminated in the centre of the flat. Plusnet's hub's WiFi covers the flat without any issues. The work laptop is right in the southeast corner of the flat and functions well on WiFi. Virgin's service entered the flat in the southwest corner, where there Hub 3 was and I had to install an AP (using an old Belkin router) to cover the home office.

CF's loop of fibre is hanging outside the lounge window which is in the northwest corner of the flat so I presume the installer would want to install their router on the wall just inside the window, which would struggle to cover our home office, I think. I'm looking at the 75Mb service, so I guess it would be their Velop one, which is a mesh type. So the first thing I would need would be a matching device, preferably with ethernet backhaul, for the home office. CF could provide this service for a tenner a month extra, but I would prefer to install this myself. Opinions and recommendations, please.

One last question. What goes between the end of their fibre and the router. Since they terminate inside the dwelling, will it be a one-box item (ONT)? Just need to know so I can provide the necessary power points for the router and ONT close by.

And finally, I do have a TP-Link TL-MR6500V in the cupboard in case anything goes pear shaped.
 
Community Fibre (not to be confused with City Fibre which is a different network) doesn't have a 75Mb plan, they have 150Mb, 1000Mb and 3000Mb. They do have an essentials 20Mb package for £12.50 but that speed is only suitable for the most basic internet users and the 150Mb plan being £20 is no brainer. Should you go with CF? By all means go for it. Service has been great so far aside from some small cuts here an there. We have yet to see how they react to a more serious issue. When you move to full fibre you can't have your coppe line anymore so customers are being moved to digitial lines. The telephone may be provided by your ISP service or you could contract a separate VOIP line. The general advice by most people is to go for a VOIP which is cheaper and can be taken anywhere with you if needed. Having a separate VOIP telephone line avoids a myriad of problems when switching ISPs and wanting to keep your telephone number. Mark did a great article on what VOIP vendors are out there:

https://www.ispreview.co.uk/index.p...ted-home-voip-providers-for-uk-consumers.html
Andrews & Arnold (A&A / AAISP) gets the most recommendations and while I think their recently raised their prices £1.40 + VAT for a UK number seems very cheap to me.

In terms of installation this is hard to predict but yes in general installers will want to come inside your house and terminate the fibre there. There is some leeway to ask them to run the fibre internally to another location, but I don't think there is a fixed limit, it will depend on the installer, how far you want the internal run, how easy to secure, etc. The fibre is terminated on small white box (see this thread for a sample) on the wall which then connects to the ONT via a fibre patch. This patch can be as long as you want so another option is to terminate the fibre at the closest entry point and then use a long fibre patch to have the ONT positioned further away and presumably close to your own network router or switch. The ONT has a small power adapter that needs to be plugged in. The ONT will have a RJ45 port which then connects to the provided Linksys Velop router. You can buy off the shelf Linksys Velop routers and add them to your mesh. Some people have even taken the trouble to de-brand the Linksys router but obviously do this at your own risk. This thread discuses that point so make sure to read it specially on how to do ethernet backhaul on the Velops which is key to have good and stable wifi mesh system. Make sure you disable any other wifi access points/routers/etc.

In terms of TV I wouldn't bother with CF's service. If you are happy with Sky Stream why change? Sky Stream will work over any decent internet connection so no issues there.
 
Thank you for your comprehensive reply.

Thanks for correcting me on the CF plans - just wondering where I got the 75Mb from!

Regarding the phone, I have a Sipgate one, but there is a cost to get the number transferred from Virgin. Also, I heard reports of loosing a VM phone number in the past when transferring to another provider. I do not want to incur the wrath of my other half If that happened! There appears to be no mention of a cost to transferring the number to CF, but with Sipgate, we can make international calls from anywhere. I have a programmed Grandstream 1620 for this!

The option to have the ONT remote from the "small white box" is an attractive one. Mounting the Velop on the wall in the centre of our flat would probably mean that I would not have to get an additional box - a bonus - assuming that the Velop performs as well as my Plusnet Hub 2 router in the WiFi department. I presume that this is a "tack to the skirting board" job and that I would have to ask the CF installer to do for me. Just hope it wouldn't incur an extra charge.

Having the ONT and Velop in the same location, would make the swap over pretty seamless when the Plusnet contract ends if all goes well. I was impressed that the Plusnet Hub 2 had good WiFi when I swapped out the Hub 1 when I moved from ADSL to VDSL.

Our Samsung TV is quite old and can't handle HDR so the Sky Stream together with basic Netflix account is a good match. It's £20 a month at the moment so I don't think I'll rock that boat.
 
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Hmm - went to the CF home page, scrolled down to the bottom - selected All Our Products - second one down 75 Mbps £25.50 / month - 12 month contract

Thought I'd seen it somewhere.

Scrolled back to the top - selected Broadband - 150 Mbps £22 / month - 12 month contract or £20 / month - 24 month contract.

Just checked, Plusnet is charging me £31.25 for 56-63 Mbps - euuuugh

Think I know which one I'd go for........

PS CF - please come quickly
 
Hmm - went to the CF home page, scrolled down to the bottom - selected All Our Products - second one down 75 Mbps £25.50 / month - 12 month contract

Thought I'd seen it somewhere.

Scrolled back to the top - selected Broadband - 150 Mbps £22 / month - 12 month contract or £20 / month - 24 month contract.

Just checked, Plusnet is charging me £31.25 for 56-63 Mbps - euuuugh

Think I know which one I'd go for........

PS CF - please come quickly
Looks like an old page they haven't removed. I always go via the top menu Broadband => Broadband Packages. But now they put their plans in the front page anyways, so the menu links just bring you down the page:

https://communityfibre.co.uk/#pricing-packages
 
@GreenLantern22

I'm still a fibre newbie, so still learning...

In your earlier reply, you mentioned that the ONT could be installed away from the CF Termination Box and that the two would be linked with fibre. Am I right in saying that this is a bit like a TOSlink cable with a male "plug" at each end, and can these be purchased in various lengths? Do these have a special name like TOSlink do?

I'm assuming that the Termination Box output and the ONT input employ the same female "socket".

I'm also assuming that an ONT then does the the job of providing a RJ45 output suitable for connecting to the WAN input of a conventional router, like putting a Virgin Hub in modem mode.
 
@GreenLantern22

I'm still a fibre newbie, so still learning...

In your earlier reply, you mentioned that the ONT could be installed away from the CF Termination Box and that the two would be linked with fibre. Am I right in saying that this is a bit like a TOSlink cable with a male "plug" at each end, and can these be purchased in various lengths? Do these have a special name like TOSlink do?

I'm assuming that the Termination Box output and the ONT input employ the same female "socket".

I'm also assuming that an ONT then does the the job of providing a RJ45 output suitable for connecting to the WAN input of a conventional router, like putting a Virgin Hub in modem mode.
Both correct. The fibre patch cord can have different connectors but is essentially a fibre patch cord. See this page for the differet types of connectors:

https://www.qsfptek.com/article/apc-upc-pc-fiber-connector-types-differences-and-selection

This can be purchased on specialised fibre optics sites fs.com but obviously the CF installer will leave you one. In general though they will probably prefer to extend the fibre coming from the street inside your house, as that's the one they will splice (terminate). I don't know if they carry different fibre patch cord lengths.
 
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@Whitemonk

I can't see why you wouldn't be entirely satisfied with the Community Fibre 150Mb/s service as a replacement for an "Internet only" Plusnet service (I assume you don't use their email of any other "bundled" service).

My personal experience is that the installers were very keen to leave the customer happy and did just the job I wanted.

I've heard from someone else recently that they were offering a second of the Velop routers to make a mesh at a very reasonable cost while they were there.

Think carefully about how the installation should be done as you will be living with it for a while.

Also, look around as there are various different offers (try the price comparison sites).
 
@Whitemonk

I can't see why you wouldn't be entirely satisfied with the Community Fibre 150Mb/s service as a replacement for an "Internet only" Plusnet service (I assume you don't use their email of any other "bundled" service).

My personal experience is that the installers were very keen to leave the customer happy and did just the job I wanted.

I've heard from someone else recently that they were offering a second of the Velop routers to make a mesh at a very reasonable cost while they were there.

Think carefully about how the installation should be done as you will be living with it for a while.

Also, look around as there are various different offers (try the price comparison sites).
Thanks for the encouragement. I'm a newbie to full fibre and seeing the coiled up fibre tail just outside my lounge window urged me not only to join CF, but to widen my knowledge about it as this method of delivering the internet is new to me as you've probably gathered from my previous posts. I've still got a few months to go with Plusnet and from a few other posts I've seen, if you sign up straight away, they will give you that few months free. It's no brainer.
 
Both correct. The fibre patch cord can have different connectors but is essentially a fibre patch cord. See this page for the differet types of connectors:

https://www.qsfptek.com/article/apc-upc-pc-fiber-connector-types-differences-and-selection

This can be purchased on specialised fibre optics sites fs.com but obviously the CF installer will leave you one. In general though they will probably prefer to extend the fibre coming from the street inside your house, as that's the one they will splice (terminate). I don't know if they carry different fibre patch cord lengths.
With that information, it now makes sense to get CF to mount the Termination Box just inside our Lounge window with the ONT just below and ask the installer to place the Velop on a shelf which is close to that window. I do have a few routers to experiment with, which have WAN sockets and some Netgear switches. I'd rather use cat5e cables (which I have of various lengths) than pay out for fibre extension cables in the future.
 
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I think I've got a bit of a wait.

I've taken a walk around our estate and ours is the only block that has any fibre attached. It's quite difficult to see as the fibre is the same colour as the brickwork. The bright shiny turnbuckles are the only real evidence. Also, there are no drop loops for several of the flats. From a distance, I can see rows of white "dots" - one of these is close to a stairwell and they appear to be drill and plugged holes with a white plug. All is quiet on the estate. I hope they come back before my current contract comes to an end.

None of the local manholes appear to have been disturbed and there are no new cabinets about either. To the best of my knowledge, our estate is only served by ADSL/VDSL via copper phone lines and the aforementioned Cable London/Telewest/Virgin Media.

Our local authority did do a press release of a CF installation in a big block of flats nearby so at least they are in the Borough and their infrastructure can't be too far away.
 
It's a bit sad that CF cannot give me a 'go-live' date as my Plusnet bb is due for renewal soon. My current plan (which meets our needs) is 64-72Mb at £31.25 pm. Their renewal offer, which I've just received, is the same speed but the new contract period is 24 months (instead of 18 months) priced at £26.99 pm.

So it looks like I may not be a Possible New CF Customer in the near future.
 
It's a bit sad that CF cannot give me a 'go-live' date as my Plusnet bb is due for renewal soon. My current plan (which meets our needs) is 64-72Mb at £31.25 pm. Their renewal offer, which I've just received, is the same speed but the new contract period is 24 months (instead of 18 months) priced at £26.99 pm.

So it looks like I may not be a Possible New CF Customer in the near future.

Why not just stay off contract for another 2 months, see if CF come by mid September etc
 
Plusnet prices out of contract are daylight robbery. The best renewal I was offered by Plusnet in May was just below £25 for a 24m contract. I used them as a backup but cancelled.
 
It's a bit sad that CF cannot give me a 'go-live' date as my Plusnet bb is due for renewal soon. My current plan (which meets our needs) is 64-72Mb at £31.25 pm. Their renewal offer, which I've just received, is the same speed but the new contract period is 24 months (instead of 18 months) priced at £26.99 pm.

So it looks like I may not be a Possible New CF Customer in the near future.
Sometimes the best way to choose is by looking at the negatives. What are you going to regret more, paying Plusnet the higher off contract monthly price say for 12 months while you wait for CF or being tied to Plusnet for 24 months while everyone else around you enjoys CF? If you can afford it I would wait.
 
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btw for my area it was a month (max) between seeing the guys cabling the poles and CF offering the service.
 
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