Original install time was going to be 1pm, but got a phone call first thing this morning asking if they could do it this morning. Certainly wasn't going to turn down an earlier time!
Step 1 was to identify where everything was to be installed. I'd made their lives relatively easy, so this bit didn't take too long.
Step 2 involved getting a jackpoint (not much bigger than a standard Telecom style jackpoint) installed inside the house.
An optical connector goes from this box into an optical connection on the Huawei router.
Photos of this later.
Step 3 was to install another box on the outside of the house which is where the fibre comes into the house.
Step 4 - getting the fibre to the house - was the bit that took the longest. To do this, they had to wait until the van with the correct equipment was available. They went away to the cabinet and effectively "blew" the fibre from the cabinet all the way back to our house. They connected the fibre in the cabinet and then connected it to the box you can see in the picture above.
Step 5 - Enable networks is notified to activate the circuit.
Step 6 - Gave Snap a call, at which point they checked everything for me and activated the cut-over from Telecom.
So by lunchtime, I was swapped over to a high speed link with my telephone working perfectly with my old "Telecom" phone number.
Some more photos
This is the Huawei router into which the optical link connects.
Optical link is on the far left, LAN1 connection is a standard ethernet (RJ45) link to the Fritz!Box.
Fritz!Box has a USB on the side.
Additional ports at rear of Fritz!Box.
Left hand cable (black) is an RJ6 that connects to the base station for my cordless phone.
LAN1 on Fritz!Box is connected back into the Huawei router.
Tip: Chances are your ADSL modem will be connected with an RJ6-RJ6 cable, so you can use it to connect your cordless phone to the Fritz!Box versus having to go and buy one 8-).
First Impressions
Internet link is very fast and isn't slowed down by the traffic you normally see in the evenings.
I'm finding that I get somewhere between 29-30Mb/s on www.speedtest.net.
Nice that I appear to be getting a bonus 9Mb/s tonight 8-).
Phone system is awesome.
Got teenagers? Then the phone system alone might be useful!
We can all make phone calls at the same time on our respective smart phones via the Fritz!Box.
Can also program it so only phone calls from people you want to talk to are routed to your respective "phone". I put "phone" in quotes, because while connected to the wireless network at home, my daughters iPod Touch is even a "phone".
Feel free to leave comments or questions.
Hi Nigel,
ReplyDeletenice blog. I've got Telecom ADSL2+ which sounds like your old set up. A neighbour mentioned they'd moved on to the new fibre UFB and I'm looking into it.
I noticed your comment about the extra 9Mb/s on the SpeedTest.net image - does this mean you signed up for Snap's 30Mb/s plan? Did you consider the 100Mb/s plan? And if so, why did you go with the 30Mb/s plan? I'm a programmer writing software from home (in Halswell) for a company based in Sydney (Au) so faster networking is very appealing.
Cheers,
James.
PS. I found your blog via a Goolge search on Fritz!Box
Hi James,
DeleteGlad you found it useful 8-).
WIth regards to speed, I decided to go with 30Mb/s first and then if I needed the extra speed, I'd then upgrade. As an aside - upgrading things with Snap is, umm, a snap 8-). I initially went with pay-as-you-go for tolls, but then once I saw I was spending over $10, I then swapped to the $10/month deal.
Although my company doesn't have an office in Sydney, it does have offices nearly everywhere else in the world, and I've found the speed more than enough. I think you'll realistically find that there will be a bottleneck between here and Australia so having 100Mb/s would be primarily good to get something from an NZ server, not overseas.
Let me know if you have any other questions - more than happy to help.
Nigel H.