EALOW cab upgrades finally starting

This morning work started on upgrading Cab 59 (dunno about the others yet), new cab going in next to the existing cab and whatever the "postman's lunch stash" is..

Groundwork completed, hopefully the cab will arrive tomorrow..

Groundwork

Old & New

Poor old cab 59

RFC isn't due until June, but hopefully it'll be online before then (the exchange has been upgraded for quite some time apparently) - fingers crossed!

Looks like it will be the smaller capacity cab not the big 288 port cab.

assume its an ECI which are much smaller than the Hauewi 288 whch were rather large but covers 256 premises (this seems to be standard delpoyment

Know how you feel, we're a week ahead of you in terms of install

Yup, it's certainly a smaller cab - there's another one another 2-300 metres down the down the road which looks like it might be a little larger, it it might just be a spur off that one..

On the way home tonight I've spotted 3 or 4 more cabs in various stages of deployment, so it looks like the installations have kicked off in earnest

I'll grab another photo in a bit of both cabs

Edit: here we go.. The other one is cab 91, and it's exactly the same as the one here, but a day further behind..

New Cab..

The other side

Edited by Stoo (Fri 02-Mar-12 22:28:03)

They are actually Huawei 128 cabs, not ECI 96 cabs

That's a good thing I take it then?

I guess it could take any amount of time between installing the cabinet and FTTC actually being available to order?

Just a larger cab, able to serve more preimises.

All depends on the works to enable a cabinet, as various delays do occur and slow the indvidual cabs down.
Time between installtion and live can varry from a few days to a few months, once the cab is humming its live and is a case of waiting for the checkers to be enabled to say you can receve a service, then place a order.

Spotted a few more cabs around the town being upgraded today, and it looks like they're doing some more work around the two cabs closest to me - cab 59 they've dug out some more on the other side of the path, not sure why yet.

It's chucking it down with rain at the moment, so I'll leave it until tomorrow before I have another look..

In reply to a post by Stoo:

cab 59 they've dug out some more on the other side of the path, not sure why yet.

It's chucking it down with rain at the moment, so I'll leave it until tomorrow before I have another look..

wise man you can bet when the rain started those lazy oaf's from openreach soon clocked off home any way what as hapenned to Great Britian?? full of lefty's these day bring back maggie and bring back hanging never did me any harm

Looks like it might be for power..

They've dug up by the side of the cab, through the path, and a big channel next to the street lamp where they've uncovered a big black cable..

Do they typically pull power from near street lights?

A couple of other cabs also have mini trenches dug out near street lights too.

Digging..

(Soggy) Trench..

Trench near lamp post..

Edited by Stoo (Tue 06-Mar-12 19:11:39)

Yep, as they need LV (low voltage) power, which street lights use, so they will take a feed from the cable feeding the light.

Look out for a joint being put in that looks like this - http://tinypic.com/view.php?pic=2l975ty&s=5

Cool, so hopefully given that they've dug up big chunks of the path, hopefully they're not far from putting in power, and thus getting the cab running?

Although I guess there's no way of knowing if the fibre has been run in yet or not.. oh well, it's on it's way at least

In reply to a post by Stoo:

Although I guess there's no way of knowing if the fibre has been run in yet or not.. oh well, it's on it's way at least

It's certainly a few more ticks on the check-list.

Looks like they've gotten the power to the cab, all the holes have been covered over again, and grass seed liberally sprinkled over the bits where they dug the grass up.

Not 100 sure if the cab is actually powered up yet or not though - there is a slight hum, but I had to put my ear to the cab to hear it, so it might have just been harmonics..

Do they tend to make much noise when properly switched on?

You do have to get your ear to the vents to hear it.

Hmm, that might be a good sign then.. I'll have another listen later

Not here. I'm on EALOW (postcode NR32 4XF) and nothing showing on the ground or on the database. The 2 cabinets further down the road are getting done though. Annoyed is an understatement

I presume you're rackellar on lowestoftonline?

I've tried to register on there several times now, but they keep rejecting my account for some unknown reason, they won't even reply to my emails, I've just about given up - great way to run a community that.. Anyway, I digress..

You're connected to cab 98, but as you know it's not in the current roll-out phase, but that's not to say it's not going to happen, there may be any number of reasons why - keep an eye out for the later phases, I'm sure they will fill in the gaps

Thats me indeed! Registered for that site years ago but its become a bit of a clique now so I tend to avoid it! Funnily enough Cab 59 is just up the road from me. I live just off Eskdale Way and half of the road is connected to Cab 59 and the other half (including my house) is on 98 which has no signs of anything . It is annoying as the two cabinets either side of me are both getting it!

I still cant seem to find reference anywhere in the PCP spreasheet for my postcode at all though,

I think you'll be on the second sheet - I've got my own copy of the spreadsheet in a single google doc which makes searching a bit easier, it just popped up that 100% of the lines for 4XF go through cab 98, but there's no other detail which means it's not in any of the current roll-outs.

But all the other exchanges in the town were like that before the last update, so it probably won't be long before it gets updated.

It might even be that they're planning on moving some lines over to the blundeston exchange (not sure why they call it that when it's on corton long lane..), park hill, the new badger homes, and a few other bits are connected to that rather than the main one in town..

Hopefully there will be a another update to the roll out sheet over the next few weeks (if they're coming out every quarter, April will be about right.

Fingers crossed!

Quick update, there has been a fair amount of activity in and around the town, with a fleet of Openreach and Morrison Engineering vans around the place installing new cabs and linking in power..

All ground work on Cab 59 appears to be complete, power is linked in, and everything has been turfed over and tarmac laid down on the pavements where they dug around. It also looks like PCP 91 is going to be connected to the FTTC cab near PCP 59 rather than its own one - work has been completed and there's no new cab, just where they've dug the path up to get to the existing cable way.

There are two new cabs on the part of Normanston Drive the town side of Peto Way, one nearest Peto Way roundabout looks complete, the one near Northgate looks like it's waiting on power.

Near the exchange in the town centre, Morrison have just finished hooking up power for something - not sure what, but it certainly wouldn't be a cab on the doorstep of the exchange..

June is the current RFS date, but hopefully some of the cabs will be up and running well before that

Edited by Stoo (Thu 15-Mar-12 19:44:00)

On the way into work this morning there were a couple of openreach vans around cab 59, with a man at the PCP and another at the VDSL cabinet putting the ties in...

Hopefully that means I'll be able to order before too much longer