FTTrn

Hello, I'm currently about 1.5km away from my Fibre cab and consequently get quite low speed. However, last week a new box appeared outside my house. It's not a box shape I've ever seen before. It stands about 4 feet high and is square in shape, probably about a foot on each side.

It's definitely an OR box, same green colour, same positioned air vents in the door, and it's connected to a new OR footway box. It was put in by a company that said they were working for Carillion Telent. It can't be an EO box, too small, and it's smaller than the 128s. The only thing I think it could possible be is a FTTrn box.

So my question is, has anyone seen an FTTrn box in the wild? Does this sound like it, and if so, do you know whether the box is a VDSL box or a g.fast box?

G.fast is not being deployed in a FTTrn guise at present, so it will be VDSL2 if its anything

Andrew

Excellent. Given it is right outside then I guess that will be giving me 80Mg. As I've already got FTTC albeit slow, I take it this will automatically give me a boost once they move my copper line to this new box. Next worry is what to do with all that speed...

In reply to a post by cartwright33:

It stands about 4 feet high and is square in shape, probably about a foot on each side.

A stand-alone square box at 1ft x 1ft x 4ft doesnt sound like any of the current FTTC or G.Fast cabinets.

Does it look like the one in the pictures in this http://forums.thinkbroadband.com/fibre/f/4380813-ftt... article?

I thought Openreach had pretty much given up on FTTrN as the costs to install a power supply cabinet were not that different to an AIO, having not solved the problem of providing remote power (from the exchange and/or customers).

No automatic boost you need to order a FTTC/VDSL2 based service to get the benefit

The only FTTrn nodes I have seen are either underground or pole mounted.
Other utilities also use green box's , e.g. virgin cable in many areas and water companies for their telemetry equipment, as well as transco for gas.

Edited by witchunt (Mon 22-Jan-18 18:52:10)

Yes, looks like that. So we have a positive ID... Looking promising.

But I already have a vdsl product. Won't the router just see this as a line that suddenly get less noisy?

Although the new bt footway box next to it, and the duct that connects it to an existing bt manhole does give it away, somewhat.

In which case if this is an infill node then once the live to live migrations are done yes you will see an increase in speeds

If it's being installed by Carillion and they haven't finished the job you may be in for a long wait.

Maybe. Telemetry equipment often requires a fixed line to send the data back.

The cabinet will be the power pillar if it's FTTrn

True... Although if this is bduk then the Government said they had been putting in place contingency plans so hopefully they will already have someone waiting to take this on.

There's already a pole right next to the box. It seems over kill for a telemetry line. I've also got a positive ID from another picture some else has posted. It must be FTTRn.

In reply to a post by burble:

If it's being installed by Carillion and they haven't finished the job you may be in for a long wait.

It was Carillion Telent, a joint venture. Telent are continuing alone for Openreach, there shouldn�t be any issues.

In reply to a post by cartwright33:

There's already a pole right next to the box. It seems over kill for a telemetry line. I've also got a positive ID from another picture some else has posted. It must be FTTRn.

I�ve not seen any FTTRn going in recently. The picture in that other link just looks like a standard small Openreach cabinet to me, it really could be anything. If it had power equipment in it then it would have a yellow 230V sticker on the side. Does it? Show us some photos of it.

Edited by deleted (Tue 23-Jan-18 08:41:52)

Standish I guess then

I've never noticed the yellow sticker on FTTC cabs? They have 230v right?

In reply to a post by AndyPandy:

I've never noticed the yellow sticker on FTTC cabs? They have 230v right?

All Openreach cabs with mains power will have a yellow sticker on when they are installed to advise of that fact. Of course over time though they fade, get picked off etc.

The responsibility would fall onto BT, since they contracted the 3rd party civils rather than BDUK

In reply to a post by Icaras:

All Openreach cabs with mains power will have a yellow sticker on when they are installed to advise of that fact. Of course over time though they fade, get picked off etc.

Can perhaps drop the 'will' in favour of 'should'. The second cabinet here didn't have a sticker. First one's is still attached.

In reply to a post by Ignitionnet:

In reply to a post by Icaras:

All Openreach cabs with mains power will have a yellow sticker on when they are installed to advise of that fact. Of course over time though they fade, get picked off etc.

Can perhaps drop the 'will' in favour of 'should'. The second cabinet here didn't have a sticker. First one's is still attached.

Yes I suppose so. They�re definitely supposed to be there, I remember it from the initial training.

In reply to a post by Icaras:

I�ve not seen any FTTRn going in recently. The picture in that other link just looks like a standard small Openreach cabinet to me, it really could be anything.

While that cabinet (in the other link) could indeed have been anything, the number (10) and the message written on top were a definite giveaway that it had something to do with the newly-created PCP (10).

https://postimg.org/image/902dd27nh/

The simultaneous improvement to the FTTC checker's speeds on offer to a dozen or so properties were just a bonus.

Note that it certainly wasn't recent, as it had the attendant publicity that went with the early trials. That unfortunately hasn't appeared to go anywhere.

But, by the same token, the new cabinet could still be anything...

When BT were trialling the very first nodes for G.Fast, then they appeared to deploy a set of FTTRN-style nodes for G.Fast, alongside a smaller number of power pillars (in the same style cabinet). Power was distributed over "spare" copper pairs to get to the new nodes.

However, that deployment style didn't make it past the bean-counters either.

This is an FTTrN power cabinet (which I had to report as it had the door open), and this is a pole-mounted node. That green power box, in this instance, powers two of those white nodes.

I've got photos of the insides somewhere, but I can't find them. When I originally posted them in a thread here I put them on Photobucket, which now tries to make you pay to access your own pictures.

Yes, that cab in the photo is an odd one. As an engineer looking at it from the front you�d assume that it IS a cabinet 10. However the note on the top confuses matters. With it seemingly being part of a trial though it�s not a regular situation.

That�s why many of us that work on the network day in day out were a bit flummoxed by that original photo when it first showed up. For starters the note says that PCP 10 is in the jointbox, well you wouldn�t usually find a cabinet in a jointbox! Only time I�ve seen similar is when an old SCP gets removed and converted into an underground joint, but then all records of that SCP are removed from the system.

Well, just been told by someone on the site that this is indeed FTTrn and that it is the power pillar that the electrics and battery go in. The actual VDSL gubbins will go in a newly created footway box next to it.

Apparently it needs power from what they called an LV feed, and that it doesn't come from the customers power (which I'm sure I read somewhere that was an option).

So looking very good for some superfast shenanigans in the near future.

That would appear to be more than a guess.

You would have had to have privilege knowledge of FTTrn stand dates by location to deduce that.

That's all correct. What you see is the power piller that has the 230v LV power feed. The DSLAM is in a white hardened enclosure and located underground . There is a multi pair copper cable connecting to the power pillar . Also Underground will be the hybrid enclosure connecting the fibre to the DSLAM the copper terminations which will make up the new 'PCP'

In reply to a post by witchunt:

That's all correct. What you see is the power piller that has the 230v LV power feed. The DSLAM is in a white hardened enclosure and located underground . There is a multi pair copper cable connecting to the power pillar . Also Underground will be the hybrid enclosure connecting the fibre to the DSLAM the copper terminations which will make up the new 'PCP'

All very interesting, there�s nothing like this in my area so I�ve never seen it in the network and probably would struggle to understand what to do with it if I encountered it. There must be extra training required for FTTrn

In reply to a post by witchunt:

That's all correct. What you see is the power piller that has the 230v LV power feed. The DSLAM is in a white hardened enclosure and located underground . There is a multi pair copper cable connecting to the power pillar . Also Underground will be the hybrid enclosure connecting the fibre to the DSLAM the copper terminations which will make up the new 'PCP'

Which makes me think the DSLAM isn't going to be very big?

In which case why not just make the cab slightly larger and house the DSLAM inside the cabinet? surely it would make it much easier to work on instead of being in a pavement chamber?

In reply to a post by connormill:

In reply to a post by witchunt:

That's all correct. What you see is the power piller that has the 230v LV power feed. The DSLAM is in a white hardened enclosure and located underground . There is a multi pair copper cable connecting to the power pillar . Also Underground will be the hybrid enclosure connecting the fibre to the DSLAM the copper terminations which will make up the new 'PCP'

Which makes me think the DSLAM isn't going to be very big?

In which case why not just make the cab slightly larger and house the DSLAM inside the cabinet? surely it would make it much easier to work on instead of being in a pavement chamber?

It will most likely be mounted on an arm in the chamber that rotates up, a bit like a FibreDP and Splitter Node etc.

So the engineer either sits on their little stool or they sit on the edge of the chamber.

Paul

Something like this?

http://resources.mynewsdesk.com/image/upload/c_limit...

Or this?
http://www.johnhenrygroup.co.uk/g-fast-technology-jo...

Both are G.Fast nodes, but the hardened white DSLAM casing appears similar.

Edited by deleted (Wed 31-Jan-18 04:39:48)

In reply to a post by connormill:

In which case why not just make the cab slightly larger and house the DSLAM inside the cabinet? surely it would make it much easier to work on instead of being in a pavement chamber?

I suspect there's some desire to keep mains electricity separate from the telephone wiring as much as possible.

And, because underground chambers are known to suffer from the effects of water, there's probably a desire to keep mains above ground as much as possible. And, where underground feeds are necessary, that they're in their own ducts.

Yeah, that's the ones

Paul