Cabinet in daffy location

We're scheduled to get FTTC broadband from the end of March '14 as part of the Cheshire BDUK project. The thing is, our cabinet is outside the village and nowhere near anyone. There are two houses within 100m. The first houses in the village are about 400m from the cabinet, the school about 700m. I'm on a lane, among the first of about 20 houses and I'm 1500m from the cabinet. I currently get 3.5Mbps after working on the internal wiring and taking care to buy a tweakable router (and thanks to all of those who have posted such information and advice over the years). The last house in my lane, which gets 0.5Mb when the wind is in the right direction, is about 1800m from the cabinet.

So what happens, generally in such cases? Putting a twin next to the current cabinet would seem to be bonkers. I'd like to think that we'll end up with more cabinets. Is there such a thing as a mini cab for such circumstances or are we all doomed?

John

Wherever the "Fibre Cabinet" is installed it must feed back to the main cabinet to provide VDSL connectivity on your line. So unless BT move the main cabinet closer to you, which is unlikely then the closer the fibre twin is, the better for users.

I know two villages in a similar situation.
Main cabinet some distance away. They do have a secondary connection point mini-cabinet (SCP) in the village itself.
Main cabinet either is already or is going to be upgraded under BDUK to FTTC status.
So the residents of the villages are probably going to end up with a half decent ADSL2+ speed of service from their FTTC connection to the cabinet - which is in itself a huge improvement from their current 2Mbps on a good day connections.

What is/can be done about it?
Well the situation is exactly as per the Binfield Heath saga where the villagers paid BT £60K to convert the two existing village SCP's to full cabinet status and then upgrade the two to FTTC.

Otherwise nothing - BT are not going to be moving or creating new cabinet positions
The FTTC program both commercial and state aided is all about upgrading existing main PCP's to FTTC, not about moving, altering cabinets.
There is not even enough money in the BDUK pot to upgrade all the cabinets in the county so any extra money if ever found is going to be spent on upgrading those still remaining not done (ie like mine!) rather than on fixing certain cases when due to chance historical reasons a block of houses cannot get full superfast speeds.

So yes - I fear you are in your own words doomed - until the next technology comes along maybe around 2020+

I do not think that upgrading a cab to FTTC will have any impact upon ADSL speeds.

Sorry, you misunderstood my meaning

Currently, in my example, the villagers get a maximum of 2Mbps from their ADSL connection from the exchange.
When the cabinet some 1.something Km away is upgraded to FTTC they will then be able to get a FTTC service from it which will be much better than their existing ADSL one, but because of the distance from the cabinet the achieved speeds on FTTC will only be around that of a half reasonable ADSL2 type connection - say 10 to 12Mbps. They may be connected to a superfast service but superfast is not what they will be receiving.

I do appreciate and agree with you that continuing ADSL connections for those not taking up FTTC should not be affected in anyway that can be seen.

I guess I have to just wait and see. The cows in the field adjacent to that cabinet are in for a treat

John

The answers above are all correct, based on BT's current strategy for rollout of FTTC in both commercial areas and in the starting phases of the BDUK rollout.

We have also seen BT start to adapt their strategy to cope with EO lines, by adding new PCP cabinets. This allows the existing FTTC strategy to then apply to those new cabinets, and has been seen in Cornwall more than anywhere else - but will still be part of the BDUK rollout.

However, there are signs that they are beginning to consider further "infill" strategies that would be included within the BDUK rollout, and cover the cases where properties are too far from the normal PCP location.

I mentioned this yesterday, on a different thread:

In reply to a post by WWWombat:

This isn't a thing that they are doing within the commercial rollout, and haven't yet done so within the BDUK rollout.

However, one village is known to have subsidised an upgrade in their own area, where the two FTTC cabinets are to be located (or perhaps already have been) with the SCP (secondary connection point) rather than the normal PCP, in order to gain the extended range. Unfortunately, SCPs are rare in the network.

But there is at least news of new solutions appearing on the horizon, though we have no idea how the new solutions are to be used.

One presentation, from Openreach NGA manager to Lancashire county council, lists some things for coverage of the final 3%. See pages 11 and 12 of this Lancashire presentation.

Another presentation, from a chief engineer in Openreach responsible for access-network strategy to NICC on their open forum day, The presentation is here, on NICC's website. Page 9 has some solutions (FTTPoD, FTTdp, and wireless for rural access), while page 18 mentions some "BDUK infill" solutions, including "NGA Amplifiers", an "all in one FTTC cabinet" located deeper in the network than the standard PCP one, wireless cabinets, and more.

Who knows when, or even if, any of them will get deployed in reality. But it is good to know that solutions are being thought of - it means they are starting to think about the final 10%.

(The unamed village I mention is indeed Binfield Heath, but I forgot its name - thanks zom22)

From those presentations, I note the use of both an "all-in-one" FTTC cabinet that is located somewhere lower in the network than an existing PCP/FTTC pair. That seems like they'd consider using it to create an SCP/FTTC pair. There is a mention of NGA Amplifiers too, but I haven't seen any technical description of such nodes.

Is there a "mini cab"? Yes, but we haven't seen one out in the real world. Take a look at this Youtube video, where one can be seen around 2:40 in.

Thanks www. "Further, faster". Some of those solutions do not look outlandish or expensive (he said, in his ignorance) so they may appear one day in the real world.

I'm optimistic that I'll get some improvement. Longer term, some of these technologies may arrive and improve matters still further.

Thanks,
John

In reply to a post by brightd:

I do not think that upgrading a cab to FTTC will have any impact upon ADSL speeds.

Not strictly speaking true. Many people are stuck on exchanges which BT in their wisdom have left on 20CN, and are thus stuck with slower than possible speeds. This is common on exchanges in smallish towns and villages in rural locations. So for example at the moment I get the maximum 8Mbps download speed, and really low SNR figures. If the exchange was upgraded to 21CN and I could get ADSL2 then without doing anything my download and upload speeds would improve.

From what I can see when an exchange gets enabled for FTTC it also finally gets an upgrade to 21CN if it was languishing on 20CN. Certainly the case at my parents home where town of population over 10,000 (specifically Prudhoe) was enabled in December 2012 it was also upgraded to 21CN.

Strictly speaking 21CN is only required at the handover sites for FTTC. As the vast majority of FTTC exchange areas are actually fed by fibre going to another exchange you can see 21CN isnt allways required for FTTC

Edited by deleted (Tue 07-Jan-14 14:38:56)

Wombat Binfield heath is now live cab and 1st few connections already benefitting from FTTC (from sub 1 meg to > 50 mpbs) - Binfield Cost was very bespoke (based on what was expected to be done by Civils)

I checked roadworks.org yesterday - nothing. Went out today and there are men putting out "Roadworks" signs by the cabinet and with a set of traffic lights on their trailer. Checked Roadworks.org today and it shows "Install 3m of 1 way poly duct in Verge,Provide 1 Provide/Recover 1 NGA Cab and base (1.5m x 0.5m)". The game's afoot!

Curiously the exchange still shows as "Under Evaluation".

John

It may or it may not.

If the exchange become a fibre head end exchange in its own right then it will be - and 21CN/WDC/ADSL2+ will become available.
However if the cabinets on that exchange are actually fed from the 21CN head end connection on a nearby exchange (as has happened) - then it won't. The local exchange in this case is no more than a fibre junction box. I see this second scenario happening on smaller exchanges.

Indeed I see the long term future as regional fibre exchanges serving satellites of smaller exchanges around them which are just junction boxes - and everything being controlled from the regional exchange.

My parents are on a small semi-rural exchange which until 3 weeks ago was 20CN. Now it's been upgraded and they've switched to ADSL2+ their sync speed is now a tad below 21Mbps.

In reply to a post by zom22:

It may or it may not.

If the exchange become a fibre head end exchange in its own right then it will be - and 21CN/WDC/ADSL2+ will become available.
However if the cabinets on that exchange are actually fed from the 21CN head end connection on a nearby exchange (as has happened) - then it won't. The local exchange in this case is no more than a fibre junction box. I see this second scenario happening on smaller exchanges.

Indeed I see the long term future as regional fibre exchanges serving satellites of smaller exchanges around them which are just junction boxes - and everything being controlled from the regional exchange.

The fibre cable most of the time won't pass through the smaller exchange on its way to the headend. It just goes directly to the headend.

What you're describing is already happening. It is very common for the headend not to be in the local exchange. I know of a borough which has 17 exchanges in it, all but one are FTTC enabled. 6 of those are FTTC headends. All of those fibre cabinets connect to one of those 6.

Edited by deleted (Fri 10-Jan-14 18:11:14)

Why is a sparsely populated village getting FTTC, but a densely populated area of a city is not?

Even my parents, who live in a small town very far from the exchange, have fibre. I don't understand this rollout at all.

Also my place of work, in the direct centre of Manchester, with many dozens of offices, cannot get fibre. People living on the outskirts in smaller towns have had it for over a year.

Is it based on potential number of customers, or what is the logic behind who gets fibre and who doesn't?

Its partly funded by BDUK, not part of BTs commercial program.

For the village/small town locations yes that will be the case.

The majority rolled out so far is under the fully commercial programme where the number of premises on a cabinet are a very big factor. So areas with large offices/business parks tend to miss out.

In reply to a post by Freo:

Is it based on potential number of customers, or what is the logic behind who gets fibre and who doesn't?

It seems to be down to the time in which BT estimate they will make a return on their investment, with the estimates based on a lot of factors.

The break-even threshold is said to be 12 years for the commercial rollout, and 15 years for the BDUK rollout.

The thinking behind business parks and office areas is that many businesses have proper FTTP.

FTTC wouldn't give them the capacity they need in most cases.

You mean leased lines. Which may or may not be using fibre. FTTP is a specific product, with minuscule availability anywhere at the moment.

I know exactly what I mean. Fibre from the exchange directly to the business. A lot of businesses on industrial estates will have a pure fibre feed from the exchange, call it whatever you want to call it.

In reply to a post by Icaras:

I know exactly what I mean.

That wasn't in doubt. What I was saying, (correctly) is that you didn't mean FTTP. By using that acronym, the majority of readers would be mislead as to what you meant.

What those businesses have is a damn sight more expensive than FTTP, and could be much faster or much slower than it. The upstream speed almost certainly much faster.

If I say an egg is round, I know what I mean. Most people would dispute the unqualified statement.

In reply to a post by RobertoS:

What those businesses have is a damn sight more expensive than FTTP, and could be much faster or much slower than it. The upstream speed almost certainly much faster.

Should be symmetric. Most leased lines of 10megabit or faster are now delivered on fibre optic bearers by the telco contracted by the ISP, so you could have a service from Zen delivered using a Virgin Media Business point to point optical fibre.

I think £10k for install and £3k/month running cost would be average for 10megabit symmetric, and given the scarcity of IP addresses they'd probably only give you a /28 or even a /29 and assume you'll NAT everything.