Plug it in.
Get online.
Connecting your TP-Link Archer A6 to the Chorus fibre box. One cable, about five minutes. Stuck at any point, ring us on 0800 4 WIRELESS.
Two boxes, one cable between them.
Fibre stops at a small box on your wall — the fibre box, or ONT. Chorus installed it when the property was connected and it stays with the house. What it doesn't do is make wifi. Your Archer A6 does that part. Here's an overview of the completed setup.
Find port 1 on the fibre box.
Chorus prints the model on a sticker on the unit — look for Type and a number. If you can't reach it, the pictures will tell you which you've got.
Select your model
Plain white, nothing sticking out of the top, ports along the front edge. The oldest ones still in service.
One aerial on top, clipped to a square plate on the wall. The ports are on the underside rather than the front, so if yours is mounted low you'll want a torch.
Two aerials rather than one, and a little wider than the Type 300. Also clipped to a wall plate.
Slim and squared-off with no aerials at all. The newest one, and what goes in on most new connections.
Connect the router.
- Run the network cable from port 1 on the fibre box to the blue port on the router. Push both ends in until they click. A plug that isn't clicked in won't work correctly.
- Stand the four aerials upright and put the router somewhere open — a shelf or a bench, not a cupboard, not the floor, not behind the TV.
- Plug in the power and wait two minutes.
Check you're online.
Look at the row of lights on the front of the router.
| Light | What it's telling you |
|---|---|
| Power off | No power. Check the wall switch and the plug at the back of the router. |
| Internet off | The router can't see the fibre box. Wrong port, or a plug that isn't clicked in. |
| Internet orange | It can see the fibre box but hasn't been given a connection yet. Give it another few minutes, then ring us. |
| Internet steady green | You're online. |
If it isn't working.
No Internet light
Almost always the cable. Check it's in port 1 at the fibre box and not 2, 3 or 4; that it's in the blue port at the router and not a yellow one; and that both ends are properly clicked in. If all that's right, check the fibre box itself has power.
Internet light is orange
The cable's fine — the router can see the fibre box but hasn't been given a connection yet. Pull the router's power out for thirty seconds, plug it back in, and give it two minutes.
Still orange, ring us. Either the connection isn't live at our end yet — the gear sometimes arrives before the line does — or the router needs its settings checked, which we can do with you on the phone.
A red light on the fibre box
That's a fault on the fibre and it isn't fixable from your end. Don't unplug the fibre box or touch the fibre cable — it's glass, and bending it sharply breaks it for good.
Ring 0800 4 WIRELESS and we'll check it from ours.
Online, but the wifi is slow or keeps dropping
If a device plugged into a yellow port with a cable is fast, the fibre is fine and it's a wifi coverage problem. Get the router up high and out in the open first — cupboards and floors cost you a lot of signal.
If the house is simply too big for one router, and old villas with foil insulation are the worst for it, mesh wifi is the fix.
Still not going?
Ring us. We can see your connection from our end, so we'll usually know within a minute whether it's the router, the fibre, or us. Seven days, 8am to 8pm.