How do I get ready for my installation?

Decide where you want the wall port, make sure the technician can reach that spot and the building entry point, and have someone available who can authorize the work.

Three things make an install go smoothly: access, a decision, and a clear path.

1. Sort out access

The technician needs to get to your unit and to wherever fiber enters the building — a basement, a utility closet, a riser, or an exterior wall. If that space is locked, arrange for it to be open, and let your building manager or super know we're coming.

If you rent or live in a condo, check whether your landlord, management company, or association requires written approval before anyone runs cable. Getting that in writing beforehand is the single most common way to avoid a wasted visit.

2. Decide where you want the wall port

Pick the spot before the technician arrives. Good choices are:

Central in the home, so Wi-Fi radiates in every direction
Near a power outlet for your router
Off the floor and out of the way of doors and furniture
Close to any wired gear — a desk, a TV, a rack

The technician will tell you if your first choice isn't practical, but starting with an opinion saves time.

3. Clear the path

Move furniture, boxes, and anything fragile away from the wall port location and along the route from the building entry point. Crate or contain pets, and keep the work area open.

If a technician arrives more than 45 minutes after the start of your appointment window, we credit your account $25. Your time is worth something, and a window you have to hold open all afternoon has a cost even when the work goes fine.

We book a two-hour window. You will be given a start time and an end time, not a vague half-day.
Someone has to be home for the visit. A technician is coming inside to place a wall port and terminate fiber, so the door has to open and somebody has to be there to say where things go. (This applies to a technician visit. If your unit is already wired you can self-install instead, and nobody needs to be home — see What happens when the technician comes?)
Some installs run longer than the window. An older building, a difficult cable path, a riser that does not cooperate — it happens, and the technician keeps working rather than stopping at the two-hour mark.
Occasionally a job cannot be finished the same day. When a building needs work that genuinely cannot be completed on the spot, we book the return visit promptly and stay flexible on timing until it is done. You are not put back at the end of a queue for a problem that was never yours.

If that didn’t work

call (617) 693-9434 before your appointment rather than on the day — we'd much rather move a visit than lose one.

Talk to us

Call (617) 693-9434, Monday to Friday 8am–6pm ET, or email [email protected]. We answer within 24 hours, and usually within an hour.

Boston Broadband is a service-area business serving Boston, Brookline and Cambridge, Massachusetts. There is no counter to walk up to — phone, email and your account at myaccount.bostonbroadband.com are the ways in.