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What to expect During Fiber Installation

My Fiber internet installation: What to Expect?

You’ve been waiting for years and the time has finally arrived, Fiber Internet is available in your neighborhood and your property is ready to install!  There are several questions you have about how the new service installation will happen. This article will answer these questions and more:

  • How will the service get to my house?
  • How deep is it buried?
  • Will you be drilling under the ground?
  • Will the installation damage my lawn or landscaping?
  • What about my well, septic and drain tiles?
  • Will you hit things I have buried on my property?
  • Figure 1

Overview

A typical installation consists of running a fiber optic cable from a vault in the road right-of-way to a box mounted on the house or building (figure 1).  The installation will usually require 2 visits: one visit to run the cable and hook it up inside the house/building (scheduled – customer needs to be home) and another visit to bury it 7-10 days later (unscheduled – customer does not need to be home).

What to expect

  1. During the Initial scheduled appointment

When you schedule your initial installation appointment we will discuss or send a picture of the proposed route we plan to use to run your fiber cable.  This is your opportunity to discuss any concerns with the route with e-vergent.  Additionally, we will ask that you mark and make us aware of any private utilities along the proposed route.

What is the “Proposed Route” for my fiber internet installation?

The proposed route is the route we estimate will be the easiest way to get the service from the road to your home or building. These routes are determined via aerial maps and are subject to change. They may not account for new construction, recent changes to the landscape or obstacles that cannot be seen on aerial maps.

What is a buried private utility?  

Private utilities include, but are not limited to, dog fences, septic tanks/lateral pipes, propane lines, drain tiles and drain pipes, well laterals and privately contracted electrical drops for outbuildings or landscaping.  You will receive more specific information about these at the time of your installation.

At the time of your initial appointment a technician will run your fiber internet cable to the house or building and mount a weatherproof box on an exterior wall (see Figure 1).  The technician will run an ethernet cable from the newly mounted box to the inside of the house, through a poe injector, and to your router.  If you previously had our wireless service, we will make every effort to reuse the existing ethernet infrastructure, if your installation is new, we will bring the cable into the home or building at the part of the house noted in the proposed route (see above).  We do our best to locate the router at an optimal indoor location, however, our technicians generally will not run cable through ceilings, attics, floors, interior walls or other obstructions inside the home.  The service will be up and running after the initial appointment.

  1. Second visit to bury the cable

7-10 days after the initial visit we will return to bury the fiber cable. You do not need to be home during this visit. Prior to any digging, Diggers Hotline will mark the public utilities along the cable route and we will also ask that you mark any buried private utilities (see above).

FAQ

Will the installation or burial damage my lawn?

  1. We use lightweight, tracked vibratory plows to bury customer fiber drops (Figure 2).  The equipment is built to minimize ground disturbance.  You will be able to tell we were working in the area, however, under normal conditions any marks left behind should not require restoration and will fade over time (Figure 3). Trenching will be delayed if weather conditions do not allow us to do it. 


Figure 2

                                                      Figure 3

How deep will my cable be buried?

  1. Terrain, soil composition (rocks, etc) and weather can impact how deep we can actually bury the cable, however, the goal is to bury customer drop cable at 6 to 8 inches deep. 

Will you damage things buried on my property?

  1. Diggers Hotline will be contacted before we do any digging on the property. They will mark the public utilities on the property.  We will rely on the customer to provide information about anything buried that is not a public utility.

What about my well, septic, propane lines and drain tiles?

  1. These are buried private utilities. We can definitely cross these systems when it is necessary to do that. Since Diggers Hotline will not mark these, we rely on customer knowledge to locate and mark them. Please let us know if you have any concerns at the time of your installation appointment.

What if I have plans to build something along the proposed route of my fiber internet cable?

  1. Please notify e-vergent prior to your installation if you have future plans to start a project along the proposed route.

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