Hi,

Would the owners of new BTO flats please confirm this for me please? I see some people saying that they have the LAN points in the utility box next to the main door in the flat and that there would be a string for you to pull your LAN cable to the entire house? This would make concealed LAN ports possible in the whole house?

Yet, I see contractors saying they are able to convert telephone points into LAN points? So which is which?

Also, some people say some BTO projects are on trial for the LAN cable thingey.

It's very confusing...

I am not staying in HDB, so I stand corrected. Both can be partially correct.

In the past, all flats are not OpenNet ready, meaning you have to run the OpenNet cable from the Telecom riser outside your unit all the way into your unit. The OpenNet contractor will not do concealed wiring, so you will have holes drilled in your ceiling, wall etc, and have trunking into your house.

When you do renovation, your contractor can lay concealed trunking from the telecom riser to your desired OpenNet point, then he puts a string there. So, when OpenNet contractor comes, the OpenNet contractor merely use the string to pull the OpenNet cable all the way in.

Now, I do read that in some new HDB flats, the contractor has pre-laid the string. So, you can use it.Yet, many OpenNet contractors are apparently unaware. Read this:http://www.punggol.sg/forum/general_discussion/open_net_for_new_hdb_flats-t43745.0.html to check if yours have a string. If yours have, you are in luck. If not, sorry.

Your existing telephone wires cannot replace the OpenNet cable which is fibre. You still have to run the OpenNet fibre cable into your house. From your OpenNet point in your house, you still need to run computer cable to your room. Apparently, most telephone cables now use the computer Cat 5 cables. So, you just change the face plate, and that can be a LAN point. This is of course provided your OpenNet Terminal Point is the same as your telephone wire starting point.

I see. Thanks for the detailed explanation. By the way, what if I need more than 1 LAN ports per room? Is that technically possible?

Based on conservative estimates, I would need 6 for the living room alone.

1 TV

1 Router

1 Apple TV

1 Media Centre

1 PS3

1 IP Camera

I was told also to use a switch as well. Where or how should I install that?

Yes, no problem. I have similar requirements, perhaps more.

Where your OpenNet Terminal Point (TP) is located, your service provider (StarHub, SingTel, M1 etc) will put a Optical Network Terminal (ONT) supplied by Nucleus Connect followed by a Residential Gateway (RG) (basically a wireless router from Linksys, D-Link etc). The ONT connects to the TP and converts the incoming optical signal from the TP to an electrical signal for your RG. This RG is the starting point for your home network.

You must think very hard and plan carefully. Where do you want your RG to be located? Many people do not bother to cable their home and just rely on a single WiFi network for their entire home. This is possible, provided the RG is located in the centre of the home, perhaps at the TV console area. But for this to happen, you must arrange for OpenNet to lay the fibre and install the TP at your TV console area, not your utility room. This was what I did for my previous place.

On the other hand, if you lay your fibre and therefore locate the TP at your utility room, then your ONT and RG will be located there. If this is your bomb shelter, just remember that you will likely not be able to use WiFi from the RG. You will need to cable out (not sure if this is possible for a bom shelter) to another WIFi router.

From this RG, you can use WIFi throughout your house, if the signal is good. But best to cable to every room in your house. You never know when you need a wired connection. In practice, 2 cables to each room would be ideal. If one cable connection spoils, you have a reserve. But my contractor wanted to charge me double. So, in protest, I laid only one cable to each room or location. I have 9 cables running out from my utility room. So, I have a small D-Link gigabit 8 port switch here. If you have 4 or less cables running out, you can simply use the 4 ports on your RG.

In theory, you can of course lay 6 cables to your living room. But I don't think anybody does that. From this cable point in the living room, you just need to connect a switch. I used another D-Link gigabit 8 port switch. You can connect 8 devices to this switch, using only one LAN point. Not enough, buy a 16 port switch, but that one is big in size. You can connect your WiFi router to this switch, in bridge mode.

For IP camera, you need to think carefully. Are you fixing the camera at the TV area? There will be a cable from the switch to the camera. Alternatively, you can rely on WiFi connection for your IP camera. Works fine if your wifi router is near and signal strong. Otherwise, connection by WiFi is unreliable.

Edited October 20, 201313 yr by kstoh

On 10/20/2013 at 2:36 PM, Ks Toh said:

Yes, no problem. I have similar requirements, perhaps more.

Where your OpenNet Terminal Point (TP) is located, your service provider (StarHub, SingTel, M1 etc) will put a Optical Network Terminal (ONT) supplied by Nucleus Connect followed by a Residential Gateway (RG) (basically a wireless router from Linksys, D-Link etc). The ONT connects to the TP and converts the incoming optical signal from the TP to an electrical signal for your RG. This RG is the starting point for your home network.

You must think very hard and plan carefully. Where do you want your RG to be located? Many people do not bother to cable their home and just rely on a single WiFi network for their entire home. This is possible, provided the RG is located in the centre of the home, perhaps at the TV console area. But for this to happen, you must arrange for OpenNet to lay the fibre and install the TP at your TV console area, not your utility room. This was what I did for my previous place.

On the other hand, if you lay your fibre and therefore locate the TP at your utility room, then your ONT and RG will be located there. If this is your bomb shelter, just remember that you will likely not be able to use WiFi from the RG. You will need to cable out (not sure if this is possible for a bom shelter) to another WIFi router.

From this RG, you can use WIFi throughout your house, if the signal is good. But best to cable to every room in your house. You never know when you need a wired connection. In practice, 2 cables to each room would be ideal. If one cable connection spoils, you have a reserve. But my contractor wanted to charge me double. So, in protest, I laid only one cable to each room or location. I have 9 cables running out from my utility room. So, I have a small D-Link gigabit 8 port switch here. If you have 4 or less cables running out, you can simply use the 4 ports on your RG.

 

In theory, you can of course lay 6 cables to your living room. But I don't think anybody does that. From this cable point in the living room, you just need to connect a switch. I used another D-Link gigabit 8 port switch. You can connect 8 devices to this switch, using only one LAN point. Not enough, buy a 16 port switch, but that one is big in size. You can connect your WiFi router to this switch, in bridge mode.

For IP camera, you need to think carefully. Are you fixing the camera at the TV area? There will be a cable from the switch to the camera. Alternatively, you can rely on WiFi connection for your IP camera. Works fine if your wifi router is near and signal strong. Otherwise, connection by WiFi is unreliable.

Mine is resale and I am planning to have Opennet fix the TP at the TV console area just like you had done. My electrician was telling me that for data points for other rooms, they will start pulling the cable from where the router is to be lcoated. Does that mean that I need to have Singtel to have set up all the modem and router in place before they do it?

or does he mean that he will simply leave the cable end at the desired router location and later on when Singtel sets up, I just connect the cable to the router?

Please advise.

Thank You

On 2/17/2017 at 0:57 PM, Razor Rahman said:

Mine is resale and I am planning to have Opennet fix the TP at the TV console area just like you had done. My electrician was telling me that for data points for other rooms, they will start pulling the cable from where the router is to be lcoated. Does that mean that I need to have Singtel to have set up all the modem and router in place before they do it?

or does he mean that he will simply leave the cable end at the desired router location and later on when Singtel sets up, I just connect the cable to the router?

Please advise.

Thank You

Yes, if you are fixing the TP at the TV console area, for data points for other rooms, your contractor should also pull the cables from all the rooms to this TP location. Yes, you can lay all the cables first. Modem / router installation is simply putting the device there and plugging the wires into the modem / router. Since there will be several devices and many wires, you may want to locate the TP point within the console (hidden but with some ventilation) rather than exposed. You also need several power points.

For the Opennet link from outside to your TV console area, you can ask your contractor to lay a normal wire or string first. Then when the Opennet contractor comes, he will just use the wire (or string) to pull in the fibre link. Otherwise, if the Opennet contractor comes after your TV console is already done up, the installation may not be neat.

For all the cables coming from the rooms to the TV console area, you can install a patch panel (neater) or just leave the wires dangling (which is what I did - but messy).

I believe I wrote about all these in great detail on my blog HERE.

There is Network Cabling parts 1 and 2. If you don't find the information there, feel free to ask again. For your information, Opennet is now called NetLinkTrust.

Edited February 22, 20179 yr by Ks Toh

Thank you. Your link was very informative and resourceful!