Changing to Fiber Optic for Internet and TV

[ggunn]

I have been thinking of switching to fiber for internet service, although our TV is all streaming and OTA. One question I have is whether the fiber will run all the way inside to their modem or if it will transition to coax on the side of the house.

 

[augie47]

Obviously the answer depends on your provider. Our POCO is also the Internet provider and simply asked where I wanted my modem and the ran the fiber accordingly...in my case through my attic then a closet and to my entertainment center

 

[ggunn]

Obviously the answer depends on your provider. Our POCO is also the Internet provider and simply asked where I wanted my modem and the ran the fiber accordingly...in my case through my attic then a closet and to my entertainment center

Were you answering me? My question is whether their connection is fiber all the way to their modem or if it transitions to copper at some point. If it changes to copper on the side of the house that would be convenient since I have coax run from that point to the existing cable modem in my office where the wifi is and the ethernet cables converge, but would that run, short as it is, be detrimental to the performance of the fiber connection?

 

[charlie b]

All I can say is that AT&T sent me two small boxes (I have not opened them). I understand that one is the router and the other is the TV controller. I believe the TV box gets its signal wirelessly from the router, and one TV box will control both TVs (they are on different levels).

Question: If the fiber somehow ties into the existing coax lines, will that take away some of the speed promised by fiber? Or perhaps will the fiber somehow tie into the existing ethernet wiring that I believe also runs through the walls?

 

[ruxton.stanislaw]

Question: If the fiber somehow ties into the existing coax lines, will that take away some of the speed promised by fiber? Or perhaps will the fiber somehow tie into the existing ethernet wiring that I believe also runs through the walls?

I believe you are thinking of MoCA ("Multimedia over Coax Alliance"). In my experience, that technology is typically used only to connect the TV boxes to the network (~40 Mbps max for 4K streaming). However, if you wanted to use it for something else, like a computer or wireless router, they should be good for up to 1 Gbps throughput if the coaxial cable is of reasonable quality. Apparently, there are two newer versions out with 2.5 Gbps and 10 Gbps throughput now.

 

[LarryFine]

I don't know, nor do I know what such an animal might look like. This is well outside my area of expertise. I am not a Real Cool Data Dude (there's "engineer's humor" for you). So I will admit that much of the earlier posts went over my head (though I am grateful anyway for the effort).

How did you get this job?! (j/k)

 

[jim dungar]

Were you answering me? My question is whether their connection is fiber all the way to their modem or if it transitions to copper at some point. If it changes to copper on the side of the house that would be convenient since I have coax run from that point to the existing cable modem in my office where the wifi is and the ethernet cables converge, but would that run, short as it is, be detrimental to the performance of the fiber connection?

When mine was installed, they put in an indoor transition/splice from underground 'stiff' fiber to indoor really 'flexible' fiber. Unless you are data mining, or playing multiple games simultaneously, your wireless system is going to likely be a worse bottle neck than any copper you have.

 

[LarryFine]

When mine was installed, they put in an indoor transition/splice from underground 'stiff' fiber to indoor really 'flexible' fiber.

The stiff stuff has a pair of fiberglass rods in it.

 

[cabledawg]

Enjoy the new speed. Out here in my neck of the woods, usually "Trench" means cutting a line in the sod and tucking the copper/Coax just below grass level. The fiber out here is predominantly Aerial so not much to trench. The tech will hand off the fiber to your designated location if its reasonable and able to get there. A box will be mounted on the outside to act as a pass through to a possibly smaller 1 mounted on the inside and then the fiber is ran accordingly from there' For anything upstairs/downstairs, you can add routers to act as repeaters, or the Mesh setup(range extenders) as someone suggested. But you may have trouble spots. Thats where you'd have to move the range extenders around to see what works best for your location or the WIFI maybe strong enough to cover the whole house. As to mounting to the side of the house, thats usually by the side where you have incoming services from(High voltage and Low). Hope this helps a little bit.

 

[ggunn]

Thanks for the replies. What is holding me back from making the change is my email address. I have had it for as long as I have had internet, and although the ISP has changed hands and names a few times, my email address has not changed; the ISP owns the domain and therefore my address. It is my login name and means of contact for many services and subscriptions. Changing all that stuff will be painful.

 

[zbang]

Some ISPs will sell you email-only service, it's worth looking into. Or start migrating to a service that offers email w/o a last-mile connection, there are more than a few.

 

[charlie b]

What is holding me back from making the change is my email address.

Are you a member of the IEEE? They offer a free "ghost" email account. You can't log into it or retrieve email from it. It simply bounces all email sent to the IEEE.ORG address to whatever email address you designate. I have given out the same email address for decades, even if I changed the address to which I wanted them to forward my email.

 

[ruxton.stanislaw]

Thanks for the replies. What is holding me back from making the change is my email address. I have had it for as long as I have had internet, and although the ISP has changed hands and names a few times, my email address has not changed; the ISP owns the domain and therefore my address. It is my login name and means of contact for many services and subscriptions. Changing all that stuff will be painful.

It's true that some ISPs offer web hosting packages that would include an email address like that. If they don't, and you're willing to pay for it, maintain the bare minimum package. Configure the old email address to forward to a new one (like GMail) and gradually migrate all of your accounts to use the new email as you sign in to each one.

 

[ggunn]

Are you a member of the IEEE? They offer a free "ghost" email account. You can't log into it or retrieve email from it. It simply bounces all email sent to the IEEE.ORG address to whatever email address you designate. I have given out the same email address for decades, even if I changed the address to which I wanted them to forward my email.

The ISP owns the domain, so they could give my email address to someone else.

 

[zbang]

Tell them you're moving out of state (to a place they don't serve) and ask how you can keep that email. I suppose the legacy cable/telco-based* ISPs might not do it, but most of the others should have some way to make it work.

*the likes of Cox, AT&T, Comca$t, Verizontal, etc

 

[petersonra]

Here the cable company seems to be replacing a lot of the coax that was strung on poles with underground something, maybe fiber. I don't know if they bring fiber into anyone's house.

 

[4x4dually]

We recently had out fiber moved from the old bardaminium to the new house. We have two service provider options out here. Pioneer (which is 100% buried fiber) or CentraNet which is hung from the power poles by the POCO and is susceptible to storms, wind, ice, etc. We went with the buried provider for obvious reasons. He had them run the incoming fiber up into the safe room thorugh a chase I put under the slab during construction. Safe room is 8" concrete walls and ceiling. The ONT is placed in there and everything is powered from a Triplite UPS. The ONT has Wi-Fi available in the safe room. Then we added a wireless extender back up the wall and into the attic via CAT6 and placed the device in the middle of the house. This serves two purposes. One, during normal weather, Wi-Fi won't drop whether you walk into or out of the safe room and close the big steel door. Two, if for some reason the spinny wind takes out the house and we for some reason get trapped inside the concrete casket, we will still have connectivity to the outside world for communication. If the power goes out AND the Generac goes down, then we still have about an hour or more on the UPS to communicate. I'd put the ONT in the basement and add extenders as needed to cover everything. You can add multiple if you want. Indoors, even a direction outdoor antenna facing an outbuilding or shop if you like. Lots of options. But dang sure have them do it the way you want it. Our installers were awesome but we are pretty small town so they were just some good-ol' boys from across the county.

 

[charlie b]

It is installed and operational. It seems that fiber was installed in the townhouse (along with coax and ethernet cabling) in the walls during original construction (about 4.5 years ago). The fiber outlet was on the wall in the main bedroom, hidden by a chest of drawers. The new fiber modem is on top of that chest, and the signal is strong throughout the house.

All my concerns proved to be for nought. Many thanks for the input.

 

[cabledawg]

Enjoy and Have a great weekend.

 

[Frank DuVal]

It requires the standard 48(?) volt ring signal.

More like 115 volts 15 cycles, I mean Hz....

48 VDC is the talking voltage. Analog signal to you new guys.

Our fiber ends in a pedestal in the front yard, with coax from there into the house. How the pedestal gets power is one of those mysteries.... When they buried the fiber down the road during the conversion from all coax feed to fiber it was an orange pipe, like PE, so it may have had wires in addition to fiber. My internet speed is sometimes 1gb, so no complaints. We still have copper phone from the "if I get my phone from the cable company how do I report an outage? Cell phones do not work in house, still, have to go outside (unless I have WiFI calling enabled)".

I am also in a weird area, two choices of cable TV providers. Cable, not cable and Xfinity etc. Someone came down the road 40+ years ago without permission. Ha! Xfinity or other fiber service will never come down the road, too rural.