I live in southern New Hampshire, in a house built in the 1970s. Up till now I've had Internet service through the local cable TV company, Charter Spectrum (www.spectrum.com). Their co-axial cable comes off the telephone pole into my house. I've been overall pretty happy with Spectrum's service, but it's fairly expensive for only 200 Mbit down.
So, I just scheduled an install of 1 Gbit fiber Internet plus phone service from tdstelecom.com. But how does TDS actually do the install, and what equipment do they provide vs. expect me to have? There certainly is no fiber optic cable running to my house yet, TDS will have to add that. What else is involved and what should I do to get ready?
The TDS website wanted to charge me an extra $12/month for "Standard Wi-Fi", but I am NOT paying that. I signed up over the phone, and avoided the silly $12/month charge by agreeing to instead provide my own "equipment". But the saleswoman was vague on what they mean by "equipment". I already have my own router, running OpenWRT. TDS has some info on their "Understanding TDS Equipment" page here:
tdstelecom.com
From that, I'm fairly sure that TDS will install their own ONT (Optical Network Terminal) inside my house. When they say "modem" they seem to mean router, NOT the ONT. Thus they expect me to have my own router but NOT my own ONT, right? Can anyone confirm that?
I assume TDS will install the ONT in my basement where the electrical, phone, and coaxial cables already enter the house. (Is there any reason I should want it somewhere else?) I'll call that the "entrypoint". My router is in my first-floor home office, along with the cable modem from Spectrum. Unfortunately, this house does NOT have Ethernet cabling, and I have no connection at all from the basement entrypoint to my office, except for the coax. (I intend to use the coax later on for MoCA networking, with the ScreenBeam ECB7250K02 Bonded MoCA 2.5 Network Adapter.)
Will TDS actually run an ethernet cable from my basement entrypoint up to my office? Or should I try to get that done myself ahead of time?
I'm also ordering $25/month phone service from TDS. Will they correctly wire up their ONT into my old house's existing POTS phone jacks? Or will I have to do that myself? How does the connection even work anyway? Does the ONT simply have an RJ-11 phone jack coming out of it in addition to an RJ-45 for Ethernet? Or is there more "equipment" involved than that?
Thanks in advance for your help and advice!
So, I just scheduled an install of 1 Gbit fiber Internet plus phone service from tdstelecom.com. But how does TDS actually do the install, and what equipment do they provide vs. expect me to have? There certainly is no fiber optic cable running to my house yet, TDS will have to add that. What else is involved and what should I do to get ready?
The TDS website wanted to charge me an extra $12/month for "Standard Wi-Fi", but I am NOT paying that. I signed up over the phone, and avoided the silly $12/month charge by agreeing to instead provide my own "equipment". But the saleswoman was vague on what they mean by "equipment". I already have my own router, running OpenWRT. TDS has some info on their "Understanding TDS Equipment" page here:
Understanding TDS Equipment | TDS Internet Support
Your TDS modem provides your connection to the Internet. It connects from your home to our broadband network. Get answers to your questions about your TDS modem.
From that, I'm fairly sure that TDS will install their own ONT (Optical Network Terminal) inside my house. When they say "modem" they seem to mean router, NOT the ONT. Thus they expect me to have my own router but NOT my own ONT, right? Can anyone confirm that?
I assume TDS will install the ONT in my basement where the electrical, phone, and coaxial cables already enter the house. (Is there any reason I should want it somewhere else?) I'll call that the "entrypoint". My router is in my first-floor home office, along with the cable modem from Spectrum. Unfortunately, this house does NOT have Ethernet cabling, and I have no connection at all from the basement entrypoint to my office, except for the coax. (I intend to use the coax later on for MoCA networking, with the ScreenBeam ECB7250K02 Bonded MoCA 2.5 Network Adapter.)
Will TDS actually run an ethernet cable from my basement entrypoint up to my office? Or should I try to get that done myself ahead of time?
I'm also ordering $25/month phone service from TDS. Will they correctly wire up their ONT into my old house's existing POTS phone jacks? Or will I have to do that myself? How does the connection even work anyway? Does the ONT simply have an RJ-11 phone jack coming out of it in addition to an RJ-45 for Ethernet? Or is there more "equipment" involved than that?
Thanks in advance for your help and advice!
