Cabinet accepting orders... BUT!!!!

Have had a Huawei All In One PCP and Fibre DSLAM cab built 8 months ago, and it has has been powered up, with fibre run into it, and the phone lines run through it too. However, when I do a check to see if I can order fibre off it, the openreach website states:

Engineering work
Your area is enabled for Superfast Fibre, but you may not be able to order a service because our engineers are carrying out some maintenance on the cabinet that connects your home.

We're aiming to complete this work as soon as possible, so please check back for an update.

This has said that for 3 months now, and a FTTC Cab trained engineer that commissioned it said its ready to go and live! Whats happening now then? No one has been inside the cab for 3 months now too....

PCP7 on Twycross Exchange for info.

If it's an infill cabinet involving moving existing FTTC services from another cabinet, then the that is likely to be the delay as those have to be transferred before any new connections can be made.

And that is all delayed by the rules that require every ISP with a customer on the cabinet to be notified and for them to assent to the move. This has defined timescales which are presumably set down in the OR Ts&Cs with the ISPs. It took about 5 months from the physical completion of our AIO cabinet to us going live on it.

Yes, it is a infill cabinet, but no lines running through it have fttc enabled, just adsl, as all the lines running through it are too far from the cabinet that feeds it to get vdsl from that 3 miles away!

Perhaps some properties that are getting slow FTTC from the original cabinet are the ones witchunt is suggesting might be involved. They would need to be transferred before you can order.

Well it seems all above isnt true, its literally just the fibre/adsl checker databases that havent been updated that CP's use to check if Fibre is available or not according to BDUK/Superfastleicestershire. So its Openreach's problem. So no idea of and when i will be able to order, as Openreach is not contactable by the public to jog this along!

Possibly have not been updated for the reason stated

Edited by witchunt (Wed 07-Mar-18 19:10:49)

I think you are missing the point about what an infill cabinet can be used for.

You are thinking of it being only for people who are too far away from the existing FTTC cabinet. Witchunt and I are talking about some a bit closer to that existing cabinet who can and do get FTTC from it, but very slow. Not sufficient to satisfy the new requirement for people to be able to get 10Mbps.

Openreach steps (in broad terms):-

1) Install, cable up and commission the infill cabinet.
2) Transfer lines like yours that cannot get FTTC to it, from the existing one. No change to your broadband.
3) Notify all ISPs with slow FTTC customers on the existing cabinet that those customers are to be transferred, as they will suffer downtime while the phone lines are transferred and the FTTC (VDSL2) at the infill added to it onto the D-sides for those customers. The date has to be agreed with the ISPs so they can tell these customers in advance.
4) Await the go-ahead from those ISPs.
5) Do the transfers.
6) Make FTTC available to those like you who already have their phone line on the infill cabinet.

My infill cabinet does not have 1 single vdsl signal running through the 100 E side cable supplying it from the other fttc cab 2.5 miles away, and when it is made live to order, it will not speed up a single line that already has vdsl on it as the nearest place that does have vdsl before this cabinet is 1.5 miles away.

Every single All In One PCP i have worked in is fed from another pcp. So the routing on them and this one will be for example,

MDF Bar Pair A/100 to PCP1 E100-D100 to PCP2 (Infill) E100-D200 DSLAM E200 to copper D100 to DP100.

Edited by 8skellerns (Wed 07-Mar-18 22:20:00)

What are you on about? (And I speak as a non-telecomms engineer):-

In reply to a post by 8skellerns:

My infill cabinet does not have 1 single vdsl signal running through the 100 E side cable supplying it from the other fttc cab 2.5 miles away

I assume the cable you refer to runs from the existing PCP to the infill one. That will be carrying the PSTN signal. There is certainly no cable ever going to be carrying VDSL2 (not VDSL by the way) to the infill cabinet from anywhere never mind from the FTTC cabinet. That would be pointless.

..., and when it is made live to order, it will not speed up a single line that already has vdsl on it as the nearest place that does have vdsl before this cabinet is 1.5 miles away.

So you believe. I find it hard to accept that's true, as nothing else you say in this post makes sense, but it is possible.

Every single All In One PCP i have worked in is fed from another pcp. So the routing on them and this one will be for example,

MDF Bar Pair A/100 to PCP1 E100-D100 to PCP2 (Infill) E100-D200 DSLAM E200 to copper D100 to DP100.

Quite. Though the detail is above my knowledge. (You have worked inside infill cabinets? That is interesting, and makes your ignorance very odd). I believe you describe there the PSTN link, as I suggested above, from the existing PCP to the infill. Whereas you said it comes from the existing FTTC cabinet. I assure you nothing at all comes from the existing FTTC cabinet to the infill one.

The infill cabinet will be receiving a direct fiber-optic cable from an aggregation point, and fibre-optic cables do not carry VDSL2.

This may or may not be the same aggregation point as the existing FTTC cabinet is fed from. The infill cabinet DSLAM takes in that fiber-optic feed and outputs VDSL2, which it merges with the PSTN signal and forwards to the D-side. And vice versa for the return path.

Edited by RobertoS (Thu 08-Mar-18 00:21:52)

Infill cabinets must have direct E side to the MDF so that they can be given an accurate Cabinet Assigned Loss (CAL) value. They cannot be routed as secondary cabinets.

Thanks . I was surprised that it was fed from the existing PCP, but wasn�t in a position to argue on that point, given the detail supplied. I was only certain over the fibre-optic feed.

Do the normal and email me [email protected]

Remind me in email an affected postcode and will then pester Openreach to see what the delay is.

Oh yes they can! Believe me, im a Openreach Engineer for a year now. The First PCP with the pressurised E side cables from the Exchnage is the Primary Connection Point, and the infill All-In-One cabinet that is situated further down the D side of the network (Grease filled cables) is the SCP, Secondary Connection Point.

Edited by 8skellerns (Sat 10-Mar-18 16:06:45)

Listen to what witchunt is saying .......

Post deleted by NGEh

No they don�t, they can be fed from existing PCP�s, I can name a lot of exchanges and cabinets that have this topology.

Don't forget we/witchunt are/is talking AIO FTTC cabinets. It doesn't matter what the topology of the E-side PSTN feed is. It is the fact that it has a fibre feed from wherever that necessitates it being classified as a PCP.

The feed may well follow the same route (not routing) except physically bypass the original PCP.

Whether it was previously the site of an SCP, which in the case of the one in this thread seems unlikely, is irrelevant. The OP hasn't claimed there was an SCP for the lines in his locality.

Edited by RobertoS (Sun 11-Mar-18 21:17:19)

What you are talking about is out of your hat.

Nobody is going to open up a mainside cable and fit a dozen airblocks and straps into the dside cables to physically bypass a cab.

They certainly cut away the original E sides to (I think) 14 in Caversham then turned what were 14/1 and 14/2 into �full� cabs ......

You seem to be criticising "The feed may well follow the same route (not routing) except physically bypass the original PCP". Possibly that is badly worded. I was trying to convey that the bypass could be external or internal to that PCP, but if internal it would still be a physical connection bypassing everything else inside it.

In other words some form of large-scale jumpering straight through, making the PCP and the AIO completely independent. To my mind, being fed from the PCP implies some function is performed on those lines by the PCP before the signal continues to the AOI. That the AOI is still dependent in some way on it. (Other than as protection against the environment). "Fed from" != "Fed through".

In effect I said I don't know how the E-side PSTN connections are done to the new AIO. The OP may be right about the physical links. I said so in the post I link to later in this one.

What I am saying, and I believe correctly, is that is completely irrelevant to the dispute over the new AIO being designated as a PCP, with a "direct" connection to the MDF, not as a secondary to the original PCP. It becomes logically independent of that PCP, however the wires get routed .

I suggest you exaggerate my fault. Compare any minor inaccuracy in my description with this nonsense:-

In reply to a post by 8skellerns:

My infill cabinet does not have 1 single vdsl signal running through the 100 E side cable supplying it from the other fttc cab 2.5 miles away

I'll bet my best twisting cutters them pairs are still in the original cab.

If you are dropping an all in one cab on 3 dside cables that could be fed by 3 different mainside cables, you'll need 9 airblocked straps in the cab hole. That's assuming you can work on the mainside joints as a lot are too tied in with all the fibre tubes on top of them nowadays.

I've had to divert pairs off of the new all in one cabs and put them back on the original (don't ask why! ) and did have to fit a strap, but in the AIO cab hole! The pairs were in the original cab just like they always were.

Does that in any way mean that the AIO is not separately identified on the MDF? That was the original dispute.

So if tapping through for spares in the original cab I might inadvertently be taking a spare E from one of the Frankenstein cabs further on ?

In the example I was on about these weren�t AIO cabs, these were fibre twins added to the original SCP�s, and these SCP�s bastardised to become PCP�s.

Seen both SCP�s be turned into PCP�s (fed from existing PCP�s) and shown as a MDF>PCP1>PCP2>DP (where PCP was the old SCP). Also seen where an AIO was dropped after a PCP so MDF>PCP1>PCP2 (new AIO) > DP. Obviously the required live to live migration takes place after it is installed and commissioned to stop any cross talk from multiple DSLAM�s that have live circuits being moved into the new PCP2.

Your correct taking any spare E side in say PCP1 maybe a spare for PCP2 as well but as you know when they�re no useable spares PTO is called to tap out some clean pairs. The E sides between PCP1 and PCP2 are also classed as E sides but will be PET cable.

A man who is on my wavelength! Never known a D side from a PCP be ripped out when fitting a AIO further down the D side, and replaced with a pressurised E side cable bypassing the other PCP. Would mean running new cable all the way from to the MDF to the AIO and BT wont invest that money even back in the days when BT invested in copper!

Sometimes they have to if the new AIO is fed by two gaining cabinets that�s policy to remove pairs from the first cabinet and joint straight through st the base of the PCP. Most of the time it�s only fed by one cabinet so no problem to put an AIO further in the network.