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DaveinCharlotte's profile

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27 Messages

Tuesday, September 19th, 2023 10:55 PM

Can gateway be installed in a garage?

Wondering what the environmental limits are for a BGW320 gateway.  Is installation in a garage (20° F to 120° F, say) advisable?

Accepted Solution

New Member

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27 Messages

2 months ago

Update:  Tech arrived today and had my internet fiber upgrade completed successfully in two hours!  No garage, of course.  Tech did not run street cable from the box near the lower left of my diagram; instead he ran it from a more distant box on the very back of my property, upper right.  Reason was that that box was just 60 feet from the big junction box across the street -- so overall much more direct.

Tech was perfectly happy to get in the crawlspace and connect the fiber cable to the hole in my wiring closet -- in fact, he said that was his preferred approach.  No conduit, just laid the white fiber cable along the floor.   In the wiring closet, he used a special mount under the fiber jack to allow the incoming fiber cable to enter the jack from the side.  So easy connection to all my LAN and Phone jacks.

ACE - Expert

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26.8K Messages

3 months ago

Section 5.3 lists recommend operating temperature of 32* - 107* F

https://fcc.report/FCC-ID/O6ZBGW320/4522478.pdf

ACE - Expert

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33.5K Messages

3 months ago

From the same document that skeeterintexas provided the link to:

Section 2.2

  • This device is intended for indoor use only.
  • Warning: Do not install this gateway outdoors.

Section 4.2

The BGW320-500 XGS-PON Broadband Gateway is intended for use in a consumer's home. Position the device in an upright vertical position located where ambient temperatures remain within a range of 32°- 107°F (0°- 41.7°C). The BGW320-500 XGS-PON Broadband Gateway should not be used in locations exposed to outside heat radiation or where it is subject to trapping of its own heat. The product should have at least two inches of clearance on all sides except the bottom when properly installed and should not be placed inside tightly enclosed spaces unless proper ventilation is provided.

New Member

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27 Messages

3 months ago

Thanks for the PDF!  Seems to me like garage install is marginal to not recommended then.

ACE - Expert

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33.5K Messages

3 months ago

Charlotte has days that are probably too warm for that, especially with vehicles sheading heat.  Overnights in Dec - Feb could easily be below 32. Most of these devices have a humidity rating (but not this one), and garages are usually not great there, either.

ACE - Professor

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5.6K Messages

3 months ago

Not in the garage. When the tech arrives, they will look at your home layout, where the fiber can enter the house and discuss your needs. You already have a network area and a third party wireless router, correct? Show the tech all that. Then the two of you can discuss what can and cannot be done. Got an aerial shot of the home from Google maps so we can see what your house looks like? I seem to recall you have an attached garage from other posts. 

It might be worthwhile to continue asking questions in existing threads. I’m getting confused with so many new posts. 

Just trying to follow all your questions in making it hard to keep track of what you need. 

(edited)

New Member

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27 Messages

3 months ago

OK, sorry, I'll keep all future posts re my installation in this thread.  Tried Google aerial shot, but it really doesn't work -- too many trees, too fuzzy.  But I drew a new diagram, below, that shows the whole layout. 

No, I don't have a 3rd-party wireless router.  I have an AT&T Pace Gateway in a wiring closet.  4 Ethernet cables are plugged into the gateway, and also a voice line (all of my phones are serviced from the wiring closet).    

Have deleted the two locations in the garage, where I had planned to add voice and lan extensions to wiring closet via ethernet.  So now I only have AT&T connections through crawlspace to wiring closet shown.  Because my service includes Voice, I have to connect to the wiring closet somehow.  3 of my ethernet devices are wi-fi-capable (though of course I would prefer cable), but one, a network printer, is cable-only, no wireless. So if the tech puts the fiber jack anywhere else I'd have to drill a hole big enough for at least 2, and preferably 5 cables down through my hardwood flooring, and I don't want to do that.  So crawlspace installation is the only solution I can see.

From the driveway side of the house (bottom of diagram), it would be a 28' run to the bottom of the wiring closet.  Crawlspace is kind of tight here (30" clearance, increasing bottom-to-top).  But from the front of the house (right side), it would be only be a 16' run to the closet, and the headspace is about 60".  Hopefully this side would work.

Not sure where the fiber cable will come in, though.  There is an AT&T Fiber "something" in my yard, has a 9" x 15" cover plate (approx).  This is about 65 feet away, in the direction shown in the diagram - diagonally down and to the right of the bottom-right corner of house.

Thanks, all, for your help.

ACE - Professor

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5.6K Messages

3 months ago

If this is in your yard, the fiber cable to your house connects in the box. Based on your drawing, fiber would run from the handhold to the right side of the house and connect or enter the house behind the sidewalk. A normal install has a box on the outside of the house that the fiber terminates in. Then another fiber cable connects to it and goes into the house. Ideally the fiber from the box(NID) can run through the crawl space to your wiring closet. You and the tech will have to determine if that can be done. You may be the person in the crawl space if you are willing to do that work. No gaurantee of how the tech will get the fiber to the WC. If they are even willing to try. 

New Member

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27 Messages

3 months ago

Yes, this is exactly what I have in my yard near the street.

Since there's a good chance my desired wiring-closet/crawlspace approach may not work, I have to plan for a standard installation -- i.e., fiber jack on the outside wall of house above the floor level instead of below it.  This means drilling a hole down through my hardwood flooring to run the ethernet and voice cables.  (This would be AFTER the tech has connected the gateway and tested it with voice cable and maybe a LAN cable or two, temporarily laid across the floor to the wiring closet.)  So the gateway will have to be on the floor by the outside wall.  In planning just where I want to set it, I need to know about the fiber cable that connects the fiber jack to the gateway.

Does it come in multiple lengths, or just one? (I'm guessing just one)

Does the cable have to lie more or less straight, stretched out to full length? (as opposed to being closer than the full length, with the excess cable doubling back on itself)

  

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