What Does An NBN Connection Look Like in a New Home?

NBN Connection to the Home

We take a look at where the NBN connection fibre optic cable ends up when it’s run from the street to a new home.

Some people, especially those in new housing estates, have been lucky enough to get a national broadband connection (NBN) to their home. The new connection puts fibre optic cabling directly to the premise. Achieving high-speed, business-grade services, and internet services. It can offer speeds of up to 100Mbps (megabits per second) for downloads and 40Mbps for uploads from selected ISPs.

People receiving fibre to the premises (FTTP) connection, there are two boxes that will need to be installed: the utility box (also known as PCD) and the connection box. The utility box is installed on the outside of the premises, it is the NBN connection to the house. The connection box is installed inside the premises. We will focus on the connection inside the premise in this article.

Considerations When Deciding Where to Locate the Connection Box

Try to avoid installing the connection box in any of the following locations:

Places where it may be damp, wet, or humid.

Under a window that can be opened.

Where there may be large temperature variations such as in a ceiling.

Cramped areas with limited air circulation.

Dusty or dirty areas.

Busy, high-level activity areas where it may be damaged or bumped.

Some of the recommended locations for installation include:

Near an electrical outlet.

Where you want the connection to be the strongest.

A cool, well ventilated dry area.

Easily accessible and free of obstructions.

Visible, so you can see indicator lights.

The location may be more efficient if alarms can be heard.

How is NBN Connected?

So, what does an NBN connection actually look and what are the nbn requirements for new homes? Here are some photos showing an nbn connection new build. It is in a Greenfield housing estate in Sydney’s western suburbs. The installation you see here is the NBN cable connection in a garage.

NBN Connection Inside Homes

https://blog.iinet.net.au/where-to-install-your-nbn-boxes/

NBN Connection Inside Homes

In the above photo, the main box that you can see is the NBN hub housing the nbn cable to house. This is the nbn enclosure at the bottom. It is from here that the fibre optic cable emerges from the wall providing the fibre network. It’s also the place where all the wiring for the home can be found.

At the top-left of the photo is the power supply for the unit (an APC Power Shield). This unit gets its power directly from the wall outlet at the bottom-left, and then supplies the modem (a Dasan H64OGR) at the top-right of the picture.

It’s actually an uninterrupted power supply (UPS), but for this installation, a battery was not supplied by default. It must be purchased separately. A battery backup supply would keep the connection box running during a power failure for approximately five hours. It permits you to make voice calls (such as 000) using your landline and the use of the internet during an outage.

NBN Connection Inside the Box

The above photo shows what nbn wiring inside house might look like. In this setup, the fibre cable passes through a hole in the wall. Then it comes through a hole at the top of the hub box. It goes straight to the modem. From the modem, an Ethernet connection is made to a switch. The switch is located (for this installation) inside the hub box.

At the top-left is a passive video splitter, which takes in an antenna input for free-to-air TV, and then distributes it to other parts of the home (in this instance there are three antenna ports going to three different rooms).

The blue wires that you see from the white switch in the above photo are connected to the patch panel for data in the photo below (there is also another one for voice).

From the patch panel, the white cables travel to four Ethernet ports that are installed as wall outlets throughout the home.

Any of the four Ethernet ports in the home can then be used to attach a wireless router and more easily distribute the Internet throughout the premises.

Ethernet Ports

In the photo below, you can see one of the Ethernet ports, and there is a port next to it that is unused. That port is for voice, but in this installation, a voice plan was not enabled. (The wiring is there if needed in the future.)

In this example, a Netgear Nighthawk was used to connect to one of the Ethernet ports located in the study. The Ethernet connection went to the router’s WAN port in order to distribute the Internet connection.

A fast router like the Nighthawk is essential in an installation like this since the speeds offered by the NBN connection (in this case from iiNet) can approach 100Mbps — the Nighthawk is an 802.11ac router and can supply very fast Wi-Fi speeds. It also has Gigabit Ethernet ports for directly connected computers.

Connection speed

A speed test conducted over a wireless connection to a notebook shows that the NBN connection to this home is one to admire, with a 96.48Mbps download speed and a 30.48Mbps upload speed.

Not everyone is able to have fibre to the home. Some of the current rollouts provide us with Fibre to the curb (FTTC). Others via Fibre to the Node (FTTN) or Fibre to the Basement. Also referred to as Fibre to the Building (FTTB).

Conclusion

Next-generation Internet is now available to more and more homes across Australia because of the nbn™. Providing technology at your location.

The nbn™ broadband access network is wholesale only. For instance, nbn™ supply services and infrastructure to phone and internet providers. They then sell plans on to us, the end-user.

The service provider supports your broadband and phone requirements.

They offer many business-grade services to support you, depending on your needs.

Is your home ready for the NBN? Thinking of upgrading to an nbn solution? Do you want to learn more about nbn rollout? Then check your address today with one of the NBN rollout maps below.

There are various providers you can choose from.

https://www.tpg.com.au/nbn/nbn-rollout

https://www.telstra.com.au/internet/nbn/nbn-rollout

https://www.iinet.net.au/internet-product/broadband/nbn/coverage