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Internet connection for new home builds

Leaptel home modem internet setup

When you’re building your new home one of the last things you probably think about is how should you set it up for your internet. With more and more things being done online, this is the perfect opportunity to think about your internet connection, set your house up right and also potentially save yourself money.

Where will the internet connection enter the house and how?

Generally, in new houses the data provider (being NBN, Opticomm or LbnCo) will need to run wiring into your house. Most builders if they are building a house in a new estate will be told by the developer who the provider is and will have to provide a pathway for this to occur. Make sure you understand what this is. Most of the time they will run conduit to somewhere in the garage which goes out of the house into the pit out the front with a lead in wire. 

It’s important to know what they are doing because after the builder has left you will need to organise for the connection to occur and be able to show the technician where it all is – on the installation day. 

In some areas you may have multiple choices of carriage provider. E.g. NBN and Opticomm / LBNCo, so make sure you do your research and decide for yourself which one you want to use. As a guide we would recommend you look at the technology they will be using e.g. NBN might be ‘Fibre to the Node’ and the alternative ‘Fibre to the Premise’. Leaptel recommends ‘Fibre to the Premise’ any day.

It is unlikely that your builder will organise the install of the line. This is normally your responsibility and will either be triggered by you placing your internet order with Leaptel or in the case of Opticomm, you are best to book via their website. The process will take normally 1–2 weeks – so ensure you plan ahead.

Where is the router going to go?

Now that you know where your internet connection will come in, you need to consider where the router is going to go. With a lot of older builds, the builder would run all the cabling from the house back to the garage where the internet carrier puts their box. This however is not the best location as your garage can get hot particularly if it has no cooling or if your garage is located at the front of the house, meaning that you’ll be providing excellent wireless to your front yard and your street!

It is now more common for builders to pick a spot e.g. a media area where a TV might go, as the location that the cables will run to so you can place your modem inside your house. This will hopefully be closer to the centre – giving you a better chance of having wireless coverage for the entire house.  So, make sure you check the router location and if it isn’t an ideal location, talk to the builder to get this sorted.

Wireless, wireless everywhere

Building a big house? Multi-story? A simple residential wireless router may not be enough if you want to get great wireless coverage everywhere. If you are building a big house, consider somewhere else you can put a wireless extender and preferably get the builder to run an ethernet wire to that location. This way the extender is not relaying from one end to the other via wireless and you should get much better coverage – as well as speed.

TVs

While every TV these days has Wi-Fi built in or you can access Wi-Fi via your Chromecast stick or your Apple TV, running ethernet cables to your TVs is one of the best investments you can make. As we move into higher quality video such as 4k and 8k TVs, the amount of bandwidth you will need to view pictures of that quality will expand while wireless is barely able to cope as it is. 

By investing in data wires to your TVs you are setting them up for the next 20+ years as well as reducing buffering when you watch. If you have a gaming console, we would also recommend you ensure that is plugged in too. You can always put a small switch at the data point on the wall where the TV is and then plug both your TV and gaming console! For the avid gamer it’s a must!

Other locations

Finally consider other locations, it is far easier to run ethernet cable now, especially in double story homes during construction, then after. So, planning early and perhaps running a data point to the kid’s bedrooms or somewhere you think you might want a TV later – is not a bad idea. If your kids are playing games, ethernet cables are a must to ensure they have the lowest possible ping times.

Order your internet

Once your house is built and you are ready to go, sign-up with Leaptel on a high-speed plan – so we can deliver fast internet to go with your fast home network, ensuring you get the best of both worlds.