Cabinet size choice for BDUK / BBfN

After what seems like an eternity Openreach and their contractors have started to install the fibre pair to our PCP. We were passed over by the commercial roll-out as the cabinet wasn't commercially viable. There are only about 180 properties served by it and BT wanted 26K plus VAT by way of gap funding at the time.

Last week "96 Cab" was sprayed on the ground but the day after it was replaced with "288 Cab" (and a bigger outline) and that seems to be the size of base they have now installed. I asked Better Broadband for Nottinghamshire (BBfN) and they said a 288 cabinet was always planned. Interestingly they are installing 96 cabs as apparently they had four others that week and they suspect that is why it got confused. So not a case of the smaller cabs not being available.

I understand that they won't fill the cabinet but it does seem an odd choice to go with the big cabinet for such a small number of lines especially when (presumably) Openreach use quite an aggressive ratio in their estimates (or it would have been commercially viable).

Thought people might find this interesting or have view on why they've chosen the larger cab.

I would guess for 180 properties that a 96 port cab would be marginal, based on a 50% take up.
I dont suppose there is that much difference in overall cost.

Edited by deleted (Sat 06-Sep-14 18:21:22)

Surprised they didn't go with a 128 cab!

Could it be that they expect most of the properties to take up the service as it wasn't covered commercially and/or it's in an area where broadband speed is dire?

Seems quite a jump from 96 to 288. Do you by any chance have another cabinet in the vicinity?

In any situation (For the consumer) it's a good thing in the sense of always knowing that if you want FTTC, there's a port in the cab with your name on it .

Speeds are circa 2 Mbs so a reasonable assumption that people will jump at it. This was the case for the commercial roll-out too though. This is a new (well 7 years) estate and the majority of the rest of the village are covered already by another cabinet that was done as part of the commercial roll-out.

Edited by abat (Sat 06-Sep-14 19:24:57)

Confused they didn't do 2 x 96 cabs or something because having almost 100 potential ports spare is quite a waste. Granted they never fully populate the DSLAM with line cards until it's required, the bigger DSLAMs are not cheap.

They may have had a bit of a realisation that a 96 cab wasn't enough as take-up will likely be big and as you said they got confused. Still quite a big gap.

The 288 cabs are usually configured with 48 ports initially and more cards are added as and when required.

Near where I live Openreach have installed a 288 on a PCP with around 120 lines.

In reply to a post by simon194:

The 288 cabs are usually configured with 48 ports initially and more cards are added as and when required.

Near where I live Openreach have installed a 288 on a PCP with around 120 lines.

Yeah they are but surely it's a waste of money on the larger DSLAM if it will never be populated near 100%?

Only advantage I can see from the operators POV is it being able to accept Profile 30a lower capacity line cards but that's about it.

Maybe they want to reduce the effects of crosstalk?

Surprised they didn't go with a 128 cab!

The only 128 port Huawei cabs are the combi's, and as far as I know they are exclusively for some E/O re-arrangements.

Confused they didn't do 2 x 96 cabs

I'd guess the cost of installing 2 X 96 port cabs far outweighs the cost of 1 X 288 port cab.

Also, when the time eventually comes, co-ordinating vectoring will be better within a single cabinet.