What does the installation process involve? 

The installer will drill a small hole in the wall to run a cable from the utility box to the connection box. Someone needs to be home for this step. 

The standard NBN installation involves installing the utility and connection boxes as close as is practical to the existing telecommunications equipment inside and outside your home. If your current phone connection runs from the street via an underground conduit, then the NBN installer will use the same pipe. If the existing lead-in conduit is unusable for any reason, then NBNTM will look into other options to connect the fibre from the street to your premises. They’ll do their best to find a solution without cost to you, but if civil works are required, it remains the responsibility of the homeowner. 

Under a standard installation, the NBN connection box will typically go inside your home near an existing telephone jack and within reach of a power point. The connection box must plug straight into the wall socket, not into a power board or double adaptor. As such, we recommend installing a double power point near the connection box so the second socket can power your home networking gear.

What isn’t included in standard NBN installation? 

Keep in mind that the standard installation does not include additional home network wiring. You need to plug your existing telephones and networking gear into the connection box, just as your modem and telephones were previously plugged into a wall socket. If you want to run Ethernet cables from the connection box throughout your home, you’ll need to pay for this yourself. 

Typically the inside connection box is installed on the same wall as the outside utility box, which could be in the house or the garage. 

Not many people realise that if you’re not happy with where the installer wants to place the inside box, you can ask for it to be placed elsewhere, as long as it’s still on an external wall and it doesn’t require more than 40 metres of cabling. This could involve some negotiating with the installer.