We get a lot of questions about how we install fiber to a resident’s home…so we started a Residential fiber Installation series on our YouTube channel to show you exactly how we do what we do!

Last month we showed you how Locate Technicians mark your yard for underground lines before we install our conduit. This month, we tagged along with our conduit crew as they installed conduit to connect a residential home to UTOPIA Fiber. Check out the video below to see how it all works.

Steps to getting UTOPIA Fiber in your home

1. Sign up on our website or by calling our Customer Service Team
2. Our team will call you to schedule your conduit and (optional) walk-through
3. Site survey/Walk-through (optional)
4. Locate technicians mark the underground lines in your yard (within 72 hours)
5. Conduit is placed by our conduit installation team
6. Fiber line is pulled through the conduit into the home
7. Set up your router, and you’re ready to start streaming!

Site Survey/Walk-Through

When you sign up for UTOPIA Fiber, the first step is to schedule your conduit installation. At that time, you have the option to schedule a site survey or walk-through with our team. During your walk-through, if you decide to have one, someone will come out and walk you through how and where your conduit will be placed. Not everyone needs to have a site survey done, but if you have a specific spot you want your conduit run, we recommend scheduling a walk through to make sure this will work for our team. If you don’t get a site survey, we will typically run our conduit through the cold air return. If you don’t have a cold air return in your home, we’ll go to the ac unit, and if they don’t have either, we’ll run it to the gas meter.

Once your site survey has been complete (if you do opt to have one), we will call blue stakes on your behalf to mark your yard. They will mark any underground lines to make sure we don’t hit them when we dig to install our conduit. Once all lines are marked, our team will come out and install your conduit. Let’s breakdown how that process works.

How we place our conduit

To place conduit, we dig small pits in your yard every 30’ and use a pneumatic missile to bore underground from one pit to the other, without damaging your lawn.

The missile uses compressed air to bore through the ground and compresses the soil around it to maintain the same diameter as the tool. That leaves a tunnel through the ground that we can pass our conduit and eventually your fiber line through. Once the missile gets to the desired location, we take the missile out and pull the conduit through.

We carefully cover these pits back up after we’re done so that you can’t tell we were there. Here is what that process looks like before, during, and after.

Next up

Now that the conduit is placed at this home, our team will come in in just a few days and run fiber through the conduit into this home. We’ll be showing you how we do that next month; follow us on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram to make sure you don’t miss it!