After reading several stories about Internet installs, I thought I would write a post on the best way to prepare for an Internet install.

No matter your provider or the type of Internet you are going to receive there are things you need to keep in mind.

1. Ask questions about your install. One of the best places is your provider's forum.

2. Know what your provider is willing to do during an install and what they will not do. For example, your provider will not run cabling in attics, crawl spaces, or walls.

3. Make a plan on what you need to do and what the provider's installer will do.

Let me give you an example of my recent AT&T Fiber Optic install.

Before I ever called AT&T I posted on the forum what I needed to have done and if the AT&T installer would do it or if I needed to do some of it myself or have a third-party do some of the work.

I wanted the new fiber optic line ran from the outdoor patch panel through the attic and through the wall of my office. I was quickly told AT&T would not do any work in the attic or fish wires through the wall. I was given the suggestion of running conduit from where I wanted the line to enter the house to where I wanted the line to enter my office, then run a string through conduit for a pull line. This way the AT&T installer could connect the fiber optic line to the string and pull the line through the conduit from the other end using the string.

My days of climbing in an attic are long gone so I had my electrician run the conduit for me. He installed a lightweight plastic conduit. The conduit is called "Smurf Tube" due to its blue color. He also fished a string through the conduit so the installer could pull the fiber optic line through the conduit.

When the day of my install came everything went great. The installer installed a patch panel to the side of the house, ran the fiber line from the pole to the patch panel using the existing hangers, pulled the optic line from my office out to the patch panel, installed the Optic Network Terminal, and connected it to AT&T Gateway. He than powered everything up and after a few updates to the gateway everything was working great.

By planning ahead and getting some great advice I was able to have a quick and smooth install. If I had not plan ahead I would have had to either reschedule the install or have the gateway installed in a different location that will not work as well.

One other thing I would mention is don't make WIFI the primary way to connect to the Internet. WIFI is second rate to a connection using an Ethernet cable. There are so many things that limit and interfere with your WIFI too many to talk about here. Just know that you signal will never be as strong, fast, or have the range as you think it should be.

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