Pages Navigation Menu

UFB Pricing, plans, maps, speeds, insights and news. All about New Zealand's Ultra-Fast Broadband (fibre Internet) initiative. Including the Rural Broadband Initiative (RBI).

UFB Install – Albany, North Shore (Snap, Chorus)

UFB Install – Albany, North Shore (Snap, Chorus)

Thought I’d share some pics of my UFB install on Auckland’s North Shore with Snap.

I signed up on Wednesday, 1 August 2012 when Snap announced their UFB Internet plans and the install was scheduled for the following Wednesday. Unfortunately Chorus had an issue with the cabinet, so they pushed it back to Friday. The guys arrived around 11am and worked through to 4:30pm, but didn’t finish the install. They came back first thing on Monday to finish off inside and connect the ONT.

Unfortunately their was still an issue with the cabinet, so the ONT wasn’t getting a connection. Apparently a power spike had taken out some gear at the Glenfield Exchange. It started working about mid-day on Tuesday, 14 August.


The FAT. This one is mounted in the existing Chorus pit. A bit full of water too. Blue fibre cables connect the FAT to the cabinet.

Chorus Fibre roll. This runs from the house down to the FAT. This cable contains two Fibres, protected by various layers of insulation and kevlar. Apparently it’s not as good as the cable that Chorus first started to use.


Each tray is for a houses fibre pair and they are coiled and joined.

Each FAT can connect about 24 houses.






The Splicer is used to join the fibres. Apparently very expensive. This one is worth about $10k.


The fibres are incredibly fine.











The black fibre that connects down to the FAT is joined to white fibre that runs into the house. This fibre also has two copper twisted pairs.

The fibre is joined to a short fibre lead that plugs into the ONT and doubles as the wall bracket for the ONT.

The red light means the ONT is not getting a signal from the cabinet. You don’t want a red light.


Success! The light turns green and we are good-to-go.

I was previously on VDSL with Hosting Direct and had a pretty good connection, 40Mbps/10Mbps with pings of ~5ms. The plan I’m on with Snap is 100Mbps/50Mbps, but speed tests top out at about 40Mbps/30Mbps with pings of 25ms. I was actually expecting it to perform a bit better. Hopefully Snap can improve this.

(Originally posted to Geekzone)

Receive important UFB updates

Receive important UFB updates

Join our mailing list to receive the latest UFB pricing details, news and updates related to New Zealand.

Thanks, you have successfully signed up.

Pin It on Pinterest

Share This