Work involved to convert EO Lines to FTTP

Where I live, on a new estate, we're one of 34 homes with an Exchange Only line (EO line). The rest of the estate, about 100 homes built after ours, are all nice new FTTP.

Today Openreach started measuring to install fibre down the street that only has EO lines. My question is, what infrastructure is normally used to convert EO lines to FTTP lines? Is the fibre normally connected directly to the exchange, using the existing EO line ducting, or is a street cabinet also needed?

Just trying to guess what the timescales are likely to be. Thanks for any insights into what Openreach are likely to do.

You don�t �convert EO lines to FTTP� ... it�s two completely separate infrastructures.

No cab on FTTP.

They will, where possible use existing ducts and joint boxes.

**EDIT** NOT PAYING ATTENTION AS BELOW RELATES TO FTTC. TEACHES ME TO READ PROPERLY LOL.

As part of the BD UK project my house was converted from EO to FTTC. The following was done to the lines on my estate of 60ish houses. I believe Openreach / BT call it 'curing' or something similar.

The cable bundle was intercepted en-route to the exchange and fed in to an existing PCP. To the side of the PCP a new Huawei FTTC cabinet was installed. The line was live on the PCP (for a long time before FTTC went live (due to challenges with power). Whilst on the PCP ADSL was still available.

FYI the PCP chosen was not the closest one, it was still around 1km away. This means that FTTC speeds are still only around 30mb/sec max dropping to <20 for further away houses. ADSL is around 5-8mb.

This contrasts with houses a little further down the road where a new Huawei all in one cabinet was built and the lines were transferred into it. This new AIO (all in one) cabinet is much closer to my house, yet they did not re-route the lines. The sole reason for this was cost. It was much cheaper to intercept line on route (even though it would give poor speeds) than it was to install new cables (even with the ducting being present and clear)

Even more frustrating for some houses on the 'other side of the road' to the AIO they did not get re-routed and instead were 'cured' to the same cabinet my house is now on. Unfortunately for them they are around 1.2km+ away so even poorer speeds. To rub salt in the wounds only 75% of the housing estate were even cured, 25% are still on the exchange as either their lines run a different way, or they ran out of space.

Looks like a bodge to me in hindsight they should have installed FTTP as all these houses apart from AIO supplied ones will likely fail to achieve 30mb/sec. Luckily for most Virgin Media have been installing equipment in to the area.

Edited by gary333 (Wed 07-Aug-19 13:56:25)

In reply to a post by Zarjaz:

You don�t �convert EO lines to FTTP� ... it�s two completely separate infrastructures.

No cab on FTTP.

They will, where possible use existing ducts and joint boxes.

Yes, wrong phrase (convert) on my part. If no cabinet is needed, I presume that also means no power to equipment is needed? Also being recent new builds, presumably existing ducts are likely to be adequate for fibre?

Edited by deleted (Wed 07-Aug-19 14:00:28)

No power requirement for GPON FTTP other than the ONT (fibre modem) in your home and the kit at the other end which can be many miles away and is housed in a larger exchange building

The 100 FTTP homes built after yours will be served by a Fibre Aggregation Node, usually underground near a local FTTC cabinet (not always located there though).

The Fibre for the FTTP being rolled out to you will more than likely come from this Agg Node.

There's no cabinets/street furniture at all in an OpenReach FTTP build.
Everything goes in underground chambers or gets mounted on telegraph poles where the network is fed above ground.

Where possible, existing ducting is used.
The existing ducting between the fibre Agg Node and the 100 new FTTP properties could be used if there's enough space in them.

Your existing EO copper line should be left in place as it is.

They install fibre as far as the underground chambers (Distribution Points) on the estate.

Only when/if FTTP is ordered will the final piece of fibre between the DP and home be installed.

Sorry, a quick followup question. I can see from BT's checker that the 100+ homes that already have FTTP are actually connected to a different exchange - Dingwall (NSDGW) - which is about 10km away. Our EO line is connected to the Muir of Ord (NSMOO) exchange which is about ½km away.

Is that normal? And what infrastructure is normally used to connect to an exchange that's 10km away?

Nothing unusual about a FTTP line being connected to a bigger exchange many miles away. I'm not very far away from you and my FTTP line is connected to the main exchange in town (Inverness Macdhui) 5 miles away, even though the copper terminates at the local exchange only 500m away or so in Culloden. The fibre to the terminating exchange is connected via a distribution point, splitter node(s) and aggregation node(s).

Anything up to 20km of fibre to the OLT is possible according to the standards. A full FTTP rollout and conversion will see thousands of exchanges closed.

I thought it was up to 40km?