What exactly is this called, and what exactly is it for?

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v217/gazzyk1ns/fib...

So, having observed fibre installations both on the net and in real-life locally, I know a bit about the process. But I was wondering if anyone could tell me what exactly this is? Obviously it's a joint or node of some kind, but... what kind? That's standing up ready to have the lid there put on and be laid down into the 3-cover footway boxes. It's right next to a PCP which doesn't have an FTTC twin yet, but will (Openreach spreadsheets, local planning application). About 500m up the same road is a PCP and an installed FTTC twin, where they had the same equipment.

The process isn't very well documented on the net, is it? You'd think it would be. Loads of people have cameras, loads of people are very interested. So first comes this:

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v217/gazzyk1ns/fib...

Which presumably blows compressed air into that red thing in the first picture, with BT written on it in white and a blue tube coming out of it.

To make my questions concise:

1. In the first picture, does that node/joint simply serve the FTTC cabinet that will eventually be there, or does it perform a wider distribution role? If so, what?

2. So, Fibre compressor > smaller red BT-marked thing with what looks like a pressure gauge on it > ...then what? How and where does the actual fibre enter the equation?

Thanks for any info. Loads of people seem to be wondering what's in the smaller ECI cabs too, I don't know why more people haven't poked cameras at them:

Side-door, upper - presumably for the copper loop-through?

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v217/gazzyk1ns/ftt...

Side-door, lower, presumably fibre coming in?

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v217/gazzyk1ns/ftt...

Front... not much to see.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v217/gazzyk1ns/ftt...

Very old GPO PCP de-shelled:

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v217/gazzyk1ns/cab...

The same cabinet re-shelled with extra room for the loop-through to FTTC cab section:

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v217/gazzyk1ns/Cab...

Edited by gazzyk1ns (Mon 06-Aug-12 10:00:12)

http://www.farina1.com/fibre/ from Milton Keynes press demo ages ago. Same hardware for FTTP and FTTC, just with FTTP it goes further.

So what you have there is a aggregation or splitter node.
http://www.farina1.com/fibre/wgc_media/source/IMG_43...
which is FTTP specific but is basically same structure except fibres stop at a cabinet. Hence why FoD in future is possible.

1. It's some kind of a fibre ODF, where the fibre is jointed. My guess the fibre is blown down (see answer 2) to the ODF downstream from the exchange / whereever the fibre terminates and then a pre-term from the fibre cab is routed to the ODF and joined.

2. A fibre tube would have been pulled through the ducts and this tools is used to physically blow the fibre itself down the tube.

In your "side door, lower" pic, the thick black tube with the yellow label cable tied coming up to the red thing, that looks like a pepper pot style pre-term, and the white thing above it looks like another smaller ODF with a around 4 trays in it (and 4 connections coming out of the bottom)

I've only overseen fibre installs inside a telco datacentre, but it's all pretty similar stuff.

In reply to a post by pete_thomson:

In your "side door, lower" pic, the thick black tube with the yellow label cable tied coming up to the red thing, that looks like a pepper pot style pre-term, and the white thing above it looks like another smaller ODF with a around 4 trays in it (and 4 connections coming out of the bottom)

That will be to splice the incoming fibre to the fibre for 4 GbE ports on the IPNI card of DSLAM. It's good to see there is possibly capacity in there for more than 128 lines.

Thanks for the replies everyone, interesting. And fairly complicated... as you'd expect, I suppose.

Edited by gazzyk1ns (Tue 07-Aug-12 12:13:15)