[jrref]

Originally Posted by idlewild

First and foremost, I think I speak for most on this thread in thanking you, John. You're expertise ("Can you hear me now?" ) and kindness to the community are much appreciated.

For those of you, like us, who may have purchased a new build, labelled "SMART HOME READY" in your Sales Agreement, and equipped with Centric Fiber, I wanted to share my thought here noting that I have not yet been down to see the home in person yet (although my wife has).

INSTALLED EQUIPMENT:
Inside the low voltage box in your garage, your home should have an Optical Network Terminal (ONT) which is equivalent to a modem for non-fiber (i.e. cable) (e.g. Optimum) service. This device translates the light over fiber into electrical over Category (Cat) 5/6 cable and is provided by Centric Fiber.

You should also have a Wi-Fi gateway installed in the back of the kitchen cabinet about your refrigerator. This gateway, the Centric Fiber Mini Gateway, connects to the ONT through a Cat 6 cable that is already connected. As with the ONT, this device is also provided by Centric Fiber and it support Wi-Fi 6 which lacks the 6Ghz band of newer Wi-Fi standards, Wi-Fi 6e and Wi-Fi 7, but it should be more than enough for 99% of us.

I've attached a photo of our Centric Fiber Mini Gateway in our kitchen cabinet for reference. I'm not sure why, but it looks like the yellow CAT 6 cable is connecting an Ethernet Port in this cabinet to something below it, but it might be just coming from beneath the cabinet and plugging directly into the gateway.

PRE-WIRED LAN/ETHERNET PORTS: Your Sales Agreement should also have a few line items labelled "D-C-R" for "DATA-CABLE-RECEPT" followed by the room in which your Ethernet (RJ-45) port terminates and cable type (e.g. "LIVING ROOM (CAT6-DATA, RG-6 QUAD SHIELD-CABLE)"). For our home, as with most I suspect, we had Ethernet ports in three locations: the Lanai, the Living Room, and the Master Bedroom. NOTE: You should see these three cables hanging/strapped within the low voltage box, but NOT connected to anything.

In order to use them and "activate" your local/wired ports, you will need to install a device called a switch which connects to the gateway and (hopefully / I think) directly to the ONT. But you will need to call Centric and have them activate that LAN port on the ONT. You can either have Centric install the switch too or buy one from Amazon for $20 and have jrref or someone install it for you: you basically connect the switch to the gateway (and hopefully ONT) via a patch cable and then just plug in each of the 3 LAN/Ethernet runs where are, again, typically hardwired for the Lanai, Living Room, and Master Bedroom.

Since these are ports hardwired, but not active and it's only one-time setup/fee, I would recommend activating them, especially if you're connecting a TV on the other end (which it likely why they chose these three rooms).

For the advanced user, there are a couple other things to consider:

-You may also want to consider upgrading your wireless kit internally by replacing the gateway and/or installing additional access points. Again, for the vast majority, the Centric Fiber Mini Gateway supporting Wi-Fi 6 should be more than enough, but to future-proof your network and add range/strength - especially for newer homes with precast concrete walls - you may want to:

(a) replace this gateway with one supporting Wi-Fi 7 which open the 6GHz channel and provides Multi-Link Operation (MLO) in which, for devices that support it, you can connect to TWO wireless networks and see speeds > 1GB even though your ISP may only provide that bandwidth!

(b) add wireless access points which essentially amplify your range and are typically also hardwired via RJ45 to provide a "backhaul" channel for nonessential data which will greatly improve on any mesh network. (This is true for those of you with non-fiber mesh networks like Google Nest Wifi or Netgear Orbi).

-You also may want want to add a local storage unit known as a Network-Attached Storage (NAS). The reason I suggest this is because you might love Amazon's Ring doorbell, but don't want to pay the monthly subscription fee and/or send your sensitive video data to Amazon. Again this is probably overkill for most, and you likely can get by with local data storage (SD card, e.g.) without a monthly subscription, but it's an option to consider especially if you stream local media.

I'm not an expert here - and likely screwed up the direct LAN connection to ONT above - but wanted to provide additional thought here.

John / jjref, your corrections/thoughts?

Thanks for the kind words. Just to clarify, the fiber optic cable from Centric comes into your home via the low voltage data cabinet in the garage and then goes to the wifi router in the kitchen. So, it's fiber all the way to the kitchen. There the router has a 4 port switch where you can connect the Cat6 ethernet cable also in the kitchen near the router, into one of the ports which will bring service back to the data cabinet in the garage. There you can install a switch to connect the rest of the hardwired connections. There is a Centric box in the data cabinet but all I think it's doing is converting the fiber drop to inside fiber which goes to the kitchen. The drop may be multimodal fiber and the the inside fiber may be single mode fiber but that's not important. Just know there is a conversion from one type of fiber to another in the data cabinet.

I did one new installation where I terminated all the ethernet cables and installed the ethernet switch and it was pretty simple if you have the tools to terminate and test all the cables. I'm available for consultation for those needing some advice for their specific home.

I'm surprised that the ethernet cables in the garage didn't have connectors and terminated to an ethernet switch given you got the Smart Home Ready package. I guess it's just another cost savings thing and or they want you to pay Centric to come out and do the work? I'm also surprised that Centric is not installing Wi-Fi 7 equipment like Quantum is doing. As you said, Wi-Fi 6 should be sufficient but with a new home Wi-Fi 7 would future proof it for a while.

Just remember if you install your own Wi-Fi 7 mesh system, all you need to do is plug it into the Centric wifi router BUT you need to log into the router and turn off the Centric Wi-Fi and if possible put their router in Transparant Bypass Mode so you aren't double routing. The double routing won't hurt anything but leaving their WiFi On will interfere with your system. You can try to login to their router or try calling them to make the changes. My guess is they will be resistent to making any changes to the stock configuration but I know it can be done. There should be an ID and password on their wifi router and you should be able to login at 192.168.0.1

Hope this helps.