Congratulations! If you’re reading this then I’m guessing you’ve upgraded to Full Fibre, or FTTP (Fibre to the Premises) as it’s also known. With vastly superior speeds over traditional fibre broadband, it’s slowly rolling out across the UK.
One aspect of the installation is a wall mounted modem (known as an ONT – Optical Network Terminal), which goes between the fibre connection outside and your router. No matter which ISP you’re with, OpenReach will have installed this for you and it will be one of their branded boxes.
They’ve gone through a number of different models but, right now, are installing a compact little box made by Nokia. This is what it should look like…
Yes, this is mine.
Underneath the box, from left to right, are 3 connectors – power, LAN out, optical fibre in, That middle one is the one that goes to your router.
As you can see there are 4 lights at the top of the OpenReach Full Fibre modem – Power, LOS (Loss of Service or Loss of Signal), PON (Passive Optical Network) and LAN (Local Area Network – but you know this one, right?). Think of LOS as showing a cut in the fibre connection, whereas PON is indicating your connection at the other end of the network.
Here’s what those lights really mean…
| Light | State | What it means |
|---|---|---|
| Power | On | The ONT has power |
| Power | Off | There is no power to the ONT. Check the power cable is properly in (the one on the left-hand side) and that the mains connection on the other end is switched on. |
| LOS | Off | You have a working fibre connection |
| LOS | On | You have a fibre connection issue – check the fibre connection in the bottom of the ONT. |
| PON | Off | No network connection has been made. |
| PON | On | You have a working network connection. |
| PON | Flashing | The ONT is negotiating a connection on the network. You’ll find this might happen a few times after initial installation. |
| LAN | Off | There is no data transmitter to your router – check the LAN cable! |
| LAN | Flashing | The shows that data is transmitting successfully to your router |
So, a full working connection should look like this…
| Light | State |
|---|---|
| Power | On solidly |
| LOS | Off |
| PON | On solidly |
| LAN | Flashing |
READ NEXT: Can you get Sky without a satellite dish in the UK?
Thanks. Very helpful. How does this coexist with a BT telephone socket ? Currently the small wall box (Master Socket 5C) has two connection points – one for the VDSL and the other for the phone.
For the broadband part of this, it will replace the VDSL socket. If you’re keeping your landline phone then you’ll need to use the 5C socket for this.
how do i get a power cable for mine? i lost mine. thanks
The painter has managed to get paint on the green optical cable connector, can I scrape it clean
I wouldn’t touch it – if you damage it in any way then this would be a chargeable call to OpenReach to replace it. The paint shouldn’t cause any issues to the cable, so I’d leave it as-is.
I’ll do that, thanks for your reply
My new box has fell off the wall how do I redux it as I can’t open the box to Re-screw it
Is yours one where the primary modem is inside another box? If so, this installation video from OpenReach might help…
5f473e1ac2
Can use my landlines phone with this setup
Hello David, I think that you need to change the order in which you have listed the connection on the bottom of the Nokia ONT when viewed from the front. You have written:
“Underneath the box, from left to right, are 3 connectors – power, optical fibre in, LAN out. That last one is what goes to your router.”
Which I think should read as:
“Underneath the box, from left to right, are 3 connectors – power, LAN out (this one goes to your router), optical fibre in.”
You’re correct Kevin. I’ll update the article.