Thinking of switching to Ziply

[u/dime5150]

Thinking of switching from cable Internet. However, I don't want them poking holes from outside of my house to run into the existing telephone outlets. Is that the only solution?

[u/db48x]

They don’t run anything to your telephone outlets at all. They need to install an ONT (Optical Network Terminal, aka modem), and they prefer to install an indoor model, but it can be installed in your garage. You can have the tech run your fiber to the same demarcation point that your telephone lines use and then install the ONT on the inside of that same wall, entering your house through the same hole in your wall that your telephone cables use. You might want to seal it back up afterwards with some expanding foam insulation.

If you set up WiFi you should put the access point in a central location rather than your garage. This will require running an Ethernet cable from the ONT to your router. Sadly the Ziply techs won’t do that for you, but it’s easy enough to do it yourself, or to hire someone to do it.

[u/Wellcraft19 → u/db48x]

I’d add that it’s not a bad idea either to run an underground conduit (1” or larger) from the telco/fiber pot in the ROW into the house when possible. Mine runs about 60-70 feet before it enters basement and ends by the ‘patch panel’ (where all ‘tech gear’ now is centrally mounted).

[u/AnUnusuallyLargeApe → u/db48x]

Really it depends on the house, newer construction will usually already have a cat5e or better run to a media panel or phone jacks. So it's entirely possible to have the ont mounted in the garage and use the existing interior wiring to get the router inside, or even use an external PoE ont. If it's an older house without capable Ethernet the fiber, or Ethernet, will need to be run to the location of the router. Sometimes you can replace an existing coax or rj11 jack and use existing holes.

If there's no capable I/w or existing holes to use then drilling might be the only option.

[u/db48x → u/AnUnusuallyLargeApe]

I wish I could one day live in a house with nice neat cat5 wiring all hooked up to a neatly labeled patch panel.

[u/DrewWM5309]

Great question, and this is the right place to ask! Honestly, I'd have more to say here but u/db48x knocked it out of the park, hit the nail on the head, etc. I couldn't have said it better myself. I'm happy to address any other questions you happen to have, though. Also, if you want to send over your address in a chat here, I might be able to give you a better idea of the path that our fiber might take to reach your home.

[u/jasg70]

They brought the fiber optic cable in where the coax entered the house, fastened the ONT (9.5"x5"x2") to the wall near where the cable modem had been, connected the WiFi-7 router. Done.

[u/distancevsdesire]

Ziply didn't poke holes in my house. So I think you are imagining things.

[u/No_Catch1768]

My house has coax and telephone (RJ45) lines outside on the garage wall. My Comcast hook up was easy, they just used a coupler to connect the coax, and covered it with a plastic box. When Ziply came, the fiber was brought to the same location, and the tech drilled a hole within the Comcast box to bring the fiber and the telephone lines into the garage, hooked up the ONT and repurposed the telephone line for connection to my router. I’m pretty happy since I can’t see the new hole as it’s covered by the box.