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Basic Home Networking Question (CAT6 Ports, Router and ONT)

Hi,
Apologies if this is obvious but am struggling to understand how this works. I recently bought a new build apartment which has multiple CAT6 data ports in each room. The apartment is wired for fibre optic so there is an Openreach ONT in one of the storage spaces. There is also a router coming in the post from an ISP to connect to fibre broadband.

In my lounge, I have a TV and soon also Sky Q. I assume I will connect both to the internet through the CAT6 data ports in the room using an ethernet cable. If I do that, will the internet just work? Or do I also need to plug something else in from somewhere to the ONT and / or the router? Could someone explain how the set up is meant to look? Do I need to connect the router through an ethernet cable to a CAT6 port as well? Or do all the CAT6 ports already connect to the internet through the ONT?

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First the bad news.

In reply to Basic Home Networking Question (CAT6 Ports, Router and ONT)

No one can tell you how it’s supposed to look as you would have to ask the person that installed that system.

BUT, for CAT 6 and for that matter almost any category of twisted pair (TP) Ethernet it’s common to have the remote port run to a port in a hub. Said hub could be discrete or a port in the ISP’s supplied Modem+router box.

The ONT as noted elsewhere on the web such as https://www.otelco.com/faq/ont-optical-network-terminal/ is the box where optical is adapted/transformed into Ethernet so this Ethernet goes to the router and we never talk about optical again.

-> Let’s sum this up that most of the time someone runs Ethernet cables (in your case CAT 6) from the ports to some area where the ISP router is and we plug in the cables that need to be enabled. It’s really that simple.

Re: home network

In reply to Basic Home Networking Question (CAT6 Ports, Router and ONT)

I assume the existing CAT6 ports will work for you. If not, check the user manual of your apartment or ask the builder what to do.

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