Appointment Slots
An engineer will be attending your premises to connect your phone line to the fibre network. To do so he/she will need access to your premises and will attend either in the morning (08:00 - 13:00) or afternoon (13:00 - 18:00). Confirmation of the date and appointment slot will be sent across to you beforehand, and if this is inconvenient you must give us as much notice as possible to re-book an alternative.
It is important that you are present throughout the appointment slot. Only being available from 9am on a morning slot could lead to the engineer not being able to gain access when they attend at 8am and therefore a missed appointment charge will be applied by Openreach.
Engineers
The engineer that attends will be from BT Openreach or a sub-contractor on their behalf. They will be able to provide ID confirming their status, don’t be afraid to ask for it. Engineers don’t always use the phone contacts they have been supplied to call you before they arrive. Some will, but others will simply show up. For this reason, it’s not possible for us to arrange for them to call to ensure you are present, even if you are only a short distance away. The engineer will expect you to be present through the appointment slot.
It is worth keeping an eye out for any Openreach vans. If you know your premises are difficult to locate, or parking is an issue then try and be sympathetic and make their path to your premises as easy as possible. Whether that be making a space available, guiding them in, making the reception aware of their visit, or providing us notes of any hazards in advance.
Work Being Carried Out
On the day the engineer will carry out the following steps:
1. Replace the faceplate of your master phone socket
If your phone line has multiple sockets scattered across the building the master socket is normally the one nearest the entrance. They will unscrew the existing face plate and change it to a double socket setup. One of the sockets will be for your phone, and the other dedicated to connecting your new FTTC broadband. By making this change you don’t need a filter / splitter as was the case with ADSL.
If your phone socket is particularly old they may need to replace the entire unit. There are no additional costs to complete this.
IMPORTANT: The engineer will NOT move your phone socket to a new location. This is not what they are here to do and requesting such a change may result in an abortive visit as your requirements are different to their instructions.
2. Locate your line ready to connect it to fibre at the cabinet
They will attach a small device to the phone line and then leave your premises for a short while. The device enables them to locate your phone line at the cabinet (the green boxes you often see in streets). Once your line is located they will connect this up to the fibre network. Once connected they will return to your premises.
3. Leave you with an Openreach FTTC modem
This modem needs to be connected to your phone socket and powered. Please ensure that you have power within 2 meters of your phone socket to achieve this.
The FTTC modem doesn’t have an interface to it. Its job is to simply remain powered up and it will maintain a connection to the exchange for you. It is your responsibility to supply a suitable FTTC router to connect to this modem. Signal from the exchange is signified by the ‘DSL’ light being lit on the top of it.
IMPORTANT: Openreach engineers sometimes get confused at this point. They install so many FTTC connections for big companies such as BT that they sometimes expect you to have a “HomeHub” which is essentially a pre-configured router. They forget that not all ISPs operate in this manner so remain confident that they need to leave you with a modem and failure to do so will cause problems and delays.
4. Supply up to 30 meters of RJ45 cable
In the event that your master phone socket (and now Openreach modem) are in a different location to where you want the router to be located, up to 30 meters of RJ45 cable can be supplied. The RJ45 cable will connect the Openreach modem to your router without losses. As part of the order we authorise the supply of this, you just need to ask the engineer for it. They may not necessary be able to run the cable for you, but if you ask nicely they may just do it for you.
The RJ45 solution is designed to ensure that long lengths of copper cable aren’t run through your building. Copper cables introduce losses to the broadband signal and if damaged they can cause intermittence and slow speeds. The RJ45 solution should be stronger and should avoid this problem.
5. Test the connection
An engineer will expect you to have a router, pre-configured with your username and password, on-site and ready to connect. This will be their final check to ensure that the circuit is working. As long as you can meet this requirement you should be left with a functioning and super fast broadband connection.
In Summary
Here is a quick overview of what will happen:
1. Your appointment will be in the morning (08:00 - 13:00) or afternoon (13:00 - 18:00). Failure to be present will result in additional missed appointment charges.
2. Make sure you look out for engineers and their entry to the building is as easy as possible (including making reception aware of their visit).
3. The engineer will expect you to have already purchased a suitable router which should be pre-configured with your username and password set in it.
4. The engineer will change the faceplate of your master phone socket allowing you to connect your phone and another device without the need for a filter / splitter.
5. They will leave your building briefly to connect your phone to the fibre network at the exchange. They will return.
6. They will leave you with an Openreach modem which needs to be connected to your new faceplate.
7. They can run up to 30 meters of RJ45 cable from your modem to another location in your building to where your router is to be located.
8. As long as you have a preconfigured router they should be able to demonstrate the connection is working for you.
For the Openreach Engineer
Thank you for attending today. To help you here is a summary of points our ISP has asked us to make to avoid confusion which has arisen with previous installations.
1. You are here to install an FTTC connection.
2. The customer is NOT a client of BT Retail and has NOT been sent a BT HomeHub.
3. Please ensure you leave the customer with an Openreach FTTC modem. This is expected as part of your installation tasks.
4. Please demonstrate that the connection is working to the customer prior to leaving.
5. If you are in any doubts, then please ask the customer for details of their broadband supplier and they will call them for you.