FTTrN spotted

Driving along today I noticed a couple of KN Network vans installing some sort of equipment on the bottom of a couple of telegraph poles. On the way back I had a closer look.

According to the image in the link below, it seems they were installing a pair of Fibre To The remote Node Hybrid Closure units. (Approx. 300 yards apart from memory)

http://www.ispreview.co.uk/wp-content/gallery/2014-a...

Is this technology finally being rolled out here in Northern Ireland, or is it still in the trial phase?

My area has already been enabled for FTTC but i'm about 500m past the last house on my road that can receive the VDSL service.

The KN guys were working on a different exchange, so i'm just curious if it's worth my while holding off ordering some ISP grade wireless kit to bring broadband to my location from 2-3 miles away where I could get it installed.

It's the first time i've seen this equipment, so perhaps it's a long way off before they have it everywhere that VDSL doesn't reach.

Any thoughts?

Cheers
Pete

I think your best bet would be to speak to the guys doing the kit installation to get some more info.

Unfortunately by the time I had caught on what the kit was, the guys were away.

I'll be keeping my eyes open for any more of these being installed, but my curiosity is now getting the better of me!

Given the small size of some clusters of premises getting faster VDSL2 access in Northern Ireland I believe that a fair few are already out there in the wild and live.

Is it the green pole-mounted box you saw? Or the white ribbed box?

If you only saw the green pole-mounted boxes, then be aware that they have other uses, and come with quite a variety of contents. Those other uses - luckily - all seem to come with FTTP as the service.

There has been a big discussion, with photos, over on Kitz:
http://forum.kitz.co.uk/index.php/topic,16743.0.html

The OP there was, coincidentally, in NI too - in an FTTC-supplied area, where he could only get low speeds.

Started reading through it and saw ...

Every pole would need a manifold, up near the top, but the splitter would only be needed perhaps every 4 poles.

... in a post from you. I don't think this is correct. A splitter node could serve more than 4 or 5 times 12 (the number of ports in a manifold)

In reply to a post by Zarjaz:

A splitter node could serve more than 4 or 5 times 12 (the number of ports in a manifold)

You could be right - it would very much depend on the capability of the splitter node held within the pole mounting box.

The original underground splitter nodes are capable of holding 4 individual 32-way splitters, so could serve up to 128 addresses; such a splitter would certainly handle more the 4 or 5 poles.

However, the pole-mounted boxes don't seem to come quite large enough to cope with so many fibres. I've seen descriptions that the boxes come in 12-way and 32-way DP variants, plus splitter variants, but the splitter capability is never explained.

My original opinion was given on the basis that the limit is more likely to be a single 32-way splitter.

Having said that, BT are getting further into considerations of a 2-way split hierarchy, such as this one. A single pole-mounted box could handle one of the primary splitters, holding 4 8-way splitters. If that were true, then you'd probably see 32 secondary splitters (each 4-way), attached to this - though some of those secondary splitters could be contained within one housing.

With that hierarchy, you'd get one primary splitter for 128 addresses, but many secondary splitters - perhaps one every pole.

The trial of FoD2 with connectorised fibre could change it all around again...