Fibre to the DP? Or FTTP?

Purely out of interest, I have two questions about the following pole and its associated green cabinet. The cabinet is significantly smaller than either brand of FTTC cabinet (and clearly isn't one, of any familiar design, anyway). Yes, the lock is broken and the door is held closed by a brick and some duct tape, but no, I daren't open the door and take a photo, although I was very tempted. The cabinet was making a noise, i.e. it has fans.

I also specifically would like to know what the white box is - there is another pole about a mile away with one on, and the other side to the one I photographed here has flashing LEDs on it. There was no green cabinet at the other pole, although it had the green splice tray(?) pole-attachment below the white box.

You can click on the magnifying glass when you mouseover the picture in Photobucket for the full-res pic.

The pole is here, so as you can see, it's very rural and so probably part of a Suffolk fibre extension programme.

Pole with white box showing

Same pole, slightly further down

Green cabinet beside the pole

Edited by deleted (Fri 06-May-16 16:33:03)

That white box looks like a FTTrn box that I saw once. So my guess is it is fibre to the remote node

Indeed, it's the Hybrid enclosure containing all the kit , fibre and copper terminations. The green box is the power Pilar

Ah, cheers for the replies. I started a thread a while back and guessed it was FTTrn, but I was wrong and it was FTTP. This time it's the other way around!

Edited by deleted (Fri 06-May-16 17:35:11)

I agree with the answers about all the green stuff, but the white box ...

It could be FTTRN, but it just could be G.Fast.

IMO, it is more likely to be FTTRN with a Huawei DSLAM. However, that enclosure looks incredibly like the one at the top of this story:
http://blog.thinkbroadband.com/2015/09/g-fast-and-fo...

The blog article suggests there might be a model ID plate on one side of the box. Can you see what it says?

Similarity to the G.Fast prototypes are probably because Huawei maybe re-purposed the existing FTTRN enclosure when making prototypes.

It won't be G.fast unless he's in a trial area. Which I don't think he is.

There seems no reason why VDSL2 & g.fast FttRN shouldn't use the same physical boxes. Aside from the technical detail of the modulation, encoding and so on, the installation requirements are surely identical with comparable power consumption. It would make for an easy retro-fit too.

nb. I should add that if you look inside VM boxes (or at least the ones round here), they contain a similar sort of sealed, finned, weather sealed box with connections for fibre & coax. I also saw inside the adjacent power cabinet (vandals had prised the doors open - not difficult, they are flimsy). The power cabinet was atrocious. It has a 48V switch-mode power supply, rather like one a bigger version of what you find in a PC. Open vents with standard cooling fans and no attempt at sealing. The mains part had a meter plus, a breaker board and a plastic 13 amp socket as you'd find at your local Wickes branch. All screwed to a bit of backboard that was lodged in place. That clearly supplied he 48V required for the network cabinets in the vicinity via dedicated DC cables.

I have a photo somewhere, I'll have to dig it out. The box was unmonitored and VM ignored my message via their fault reporting page. I wrapped duct tape round the box and about 4 months later they put the door back on properly.

*** edit ***

I found a couple of photos of the local VM equivalent. The network cabinet door was half open, hence the angle of the photo. Note how similar the die cast network box is to the FttRN one. Compare it to the power cabinet. I did it a slight disservice as the power supply is a UPS too and it's 60V, not 48V. Also the sockets are metal clad and not plastic and there's no meter. However, it's not exactly neat (and there's no monitoring of the enclosure).

http://i1097.photobucket.com/albums/g360/steve_jones...

http://i1097.photobucket.com/albums/g360/steve_jones...


I don't think the leaves and beer cans are standard VM kit.

Of course the interesting thing is how converged the network node physical infrastructure becomes when cable is compared with FttRN. Similar frequency of cabinets (VM ones seem to be about 100-200m apart and local power distribution). Perhaps not surprising for any hybrid architecture. Whilst co-ax is a better transmission medium than twisted pair, the cable segments are shared and the total length with all the spurs must be quite long.

Edited by deleted (Fri 06-May-16 19:20:13)

If you check the BT Wholsale database it displays as FTTC available -
http://dslchecker.bt.com/adsl/ADSLChecker.AddressOut...

E.G:
FTTC Range A (Clean) 80 80 20 20 -- Available
FTTC Range B (Impacted) 80 67.5 20 18.1 -- Available

So it appears to be FTTrN.

It's FTTRN

That is correct on the FTTRN and easy to tell if its G.fast as on the wholesale checkers once live you get offered a 300 Mbps service option, if its a VDSL2 node then the usual up to 76 Mbps range.

The boxes are potentially interchangeable, and the labs have vdsl2 and g.fast running from the same boxes.

The power pillar can in theory be some distance away and supply power over copper pairs to a number of FTTrN units if needed.

Yeah the powered VM cabinets were never built to anything close to the same standard as any kind of powered BT cabinet, or even a modern BT copper cabinet.

In reply to a post by Icaras:

It won't be G.fast unless he's in a trial area. Which I don't think he is.

Agree it was unlikely, and now known not to be.

However, it is noticeable how often unannounced technical trials happen within commutable distance of Martlesham...

In reply to a post by TheEulerID:

That clearly supplied he 48V required for the network cabinets in the vicinity via dedicated DC cables.

The power uses the coax for transport, not dedicated cables.

In reply to a post by TheEulerID:

The network cabinet door was half open, hence the angle of the photo. Note how similar the die cast network box is to the FttRN one.

No surprise there. Both were built to be on top of a pole

In reply to a post by TheEulerID:

Of course the interesting thing is how converged the network node physical infrastructure becomes when cable is compared with FttRN. Similar frequency of cabinets (VM ones seem to be about 100-200m apart and local power distribution). Perhaps not surprising for any hybrid architecture. Whilst co-ax is a better transmission medium than twisted pair, the cable segments are shared and the total length with all the spurs must be quite long.

There are a few differences of course. The VM cabinets don't have fibre to each of them. The VM cabinets are taking in a coaxial feed, splitting and amplifying it, and using one split to feed a tap bank with the other feeding one or more cabinets further down the chain. The tap bank feeds customers.

Rarely cabinets will not even feed customers, but be there to split or extend coax lines only. These contain imaginatively titled line extenders, or bridge amps.

The architecture VM use is less akin to FttRN than an HFC star network perhaps, where there's fibre to a central point and coaxial spurs from that star.

VM use a combi/MDU network architecture for the most part. There were some tree and branch networks but I believe these were retrofitted to combi.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bOAjzKY51-I&ab_chann... should be very useful in understanding the architectures

Edited by deleted (Sat 07-May-16 18:25:51)

Just resurrecting this thread because, predictably, after some heavy and prolonged rain today, the duct tape holding the green cab closed was all oozing its sticky stuff and hanging off, so you could see inside. The brick was the wrong way up to hold the door shut. So before standing the brick up vertically and re-taping it as best as I could, I thought it would be rude not to show you what was inside. It's a bit more than a simple power supply and battery backup:

The bulk of it

Top-right, as you face it

Top-left, just the electricity meter and mains connection

The base

Again, you can click on the magnifying glass when you mouseover the photos for the high-res version... not that the photos are of the best quality, it was dusk and I only had my phone on me. So obviously the first photo is by far the most interesting - are all the ethernet-type ports, and the more "custom"-looking ones all for diagnostics? Or are the components used in things other than cabinets (i.e. server centres, etc.)?

Finally... I get the feeling someone local to that specific area might have already reported it, but I suppose I should check - I've heard people here say they've reported vandalised FTTC and PCP cabs before, which number should I use? I'm sure they don't want that stolen and/or rained on. It sounds broken already, like the fans are straining and spinning up and down in cycles.

Anyway, bit of a rare photo opportunity.

In reply to a post by gazzyk1ns:

I get the feeling someone local to that specific area might have already reported it, but I suppose I should check - I've heard people here say they've reported vandalised FTTC and PCP cabs before, which number should I use? I'm sure they don't want that stolen and/or rained on. It sounds broken already, like the fans are straining and spinning up and down in cycles.

Linky. "About damage or Health and Safety" option.

I want to report damage to your equipment or network

We want to know immediately if any part of our network has been damaged or poses a risk to public health and safety.

Damage:If you see broken or missing manhole cover, telephone poles that have been blown down by gales, street cabinets that have been affected by flooding or obviously vandalised, please dial 0800 023 2023 and select Option 1. (This number is reserved for calls about our network. The operators won�t be able to help with other issues.)

If you wish to report graffiti on our external network (i.e. cabinets), call our damage team on 0800 023 2023 (Option 1).

Looks to be the number.

Edited by RobertoS (Tue 10-May-16 23:53:38)

Cheers, I'll report it.

In reply to a post by gazzyk1ns:

... not that the photos are of the best quality, it was dusk and I only had my phone on me. So obviously the first photo is by far the most interesting - are all the ethernet-type ports, and the more "custom"-looking ones all for diagnostics? Or are the components used in things other than cabinets (i.e. server centres, etc.)?

Pictures that get manufacturer/product I'd labels would help.

These cabinets, in some locations, aren't really about 240V. They are about creating -50V, and putting it onto 25-pair, 50-pair copper cables. Racked boxes, like those in the first photo, that takes in power on one thick copper pair, and puts out 50 ordinary twisted pairs is what I'd expect. Room for multiple boxes too.

I've no idea about all those Ethernet ports. You'd expect some monitoring capability, but there are a lot!

In reply to a post by WWWombat:

Pictures that get manufacturer/product I'd labels would help.

Again, mouseover it in photobucket and press the magnifying glass. The two black Huawei units stacked sideways on top of each other on the left are SMU01B (bottom) and R4830G (top). Here is a PDF manual which details both of them, amongst others. That whole load of black Huawei stuff is basically power converters/rectifiers. If you Google image search for the first number and scroll down a bit, you can see the whole big "card", above the smaller thing with the LCD display.

The bottom silver stacked card in the middle says CPF318 on it, but Google doesn't show anything. The top one says GCM98 I think, but no results either.

Edited by deleted (Wed 11-May-16 03:46:25)

Possibly not necessary to bump this thread, but just for the record: I rang the above number and reported it, and about two hours later an OR engineer rang me from his mobile and said it was fixed. Apparently no locks were broken, so he just took all the tape off and locked it. I didn't ask, but I think that cabinet was just using the two "triangle" locks, like on domestic outside electricity wall-boxes but much larger. It didn't look like there was anything installed within the "proper" vandal-proof lock housing in the centre of the side, which FTTC cabs use.

Anyway, very minor problem solved for someone else (I'm not off that pole or any of that FTTRN run).

OK, I am a bit obsessed, but last pictures, to complete the thread (again, mouseover and press the magnifying glass in photobucket):

The important side of the white box/remote node

The fixed cabinet

In reply to a post by gazzyk1ns:

The important side of the white box/remote node

You have, indeed, found a Huawei SmartAX MA5611S [1] deployed in the wild.

[1] http://www1.huawei.com/en/products/fixed-access/fttx...

I shall keep my eyes peeled whenever I'm on broadband safari in the future.

Edited by deleted (Sat 14-May-16 02:14:22)