Father's FTTP Install Guide
Now that my father has his FTTP installed, and existing phone number moved over to VOIP with Andrews & Arnold, I thought I’d write a guide on the install. The other reason for writing this, is that I have appreciated the help and support I have had on this forum and hope others may find this guide of interest.
It was important not to lose his existing landline phone number through this process. We signed up for a new Plusnet account to order FTTP, in addition to his existing ADSL and landline Plusnet account.
Running the fibre cable in a discreet manner entailed some preparation before the Openreach visit. We partially dismantled the doorstep and ran a grey plastic water pipe through the doorstep and rebuilt it.
On the install date the Openreach engineer ran the fibre cable through the plastic pipe to the other side of the step. He fitted the ONT inside a built in wardrobe, at our request.
The photo shows that the existing Openreach cable duct is to the left of the doorstep. However, we needed the fibre cable to enter the house to the right of the doorstep (without running unsightly cables on the front of the house. Have circled the cable duct, the plastic pipe and where the fibre cable enters the property.
The photo shows the ONT, a 4 way surge protected cable bar, the Grandstream HT801 analogue telephone adaptor. The computer and router are on the other side of this wall and various power, Ethernet, and phone cables go through the wall (via the brush plate). The blue Ethernet cable feeds the ATA from the router. The white ethernet cable runs from the ONT to the router. As the cable bar is permanently turned on, the power supply for the router is plugged in here too.
Only when the FTTP was installed, did we contact Andrews and Arnold to get them to transfer the landline number over to VOIP. This process ceased to Plusnet ADSL line (don’t contact Plusnet about this! The gaining provider does this!).
The Grandstream adaptor was bought from Andrews and Arnold. It was partially configured with the account details. However I had to use this forum to get advice on some settings, to get it working properly.
The final step was to get the phone in a different room from the computer. I used the existing extension phone wiring for this. The first step was to disconnect the incoming phone line from the master socket (and put heat shrink sleeving individually over the incoming wires to ensure they couldn’t touch anything).
Then I plugged an old phone cord (RJ11 to BT plug) directly into the ATA and the other end into the secondary (or slave) phone socket, which is next to the computer. The phone then worked, once I plugged it into another secondary phone socket. We wanted the phone where the master socket was located, but couldn’t get it to work there. I double checked the connections and wiring colour coding, at the master socket, but still couldn’t get it to work. Replaced the master socket with a secondary phone socket and it all works fine. I must emphasise that the extension wiring is not connected to the openreach wiring in any way.
Any questions or comments, please ask.