G.fast - why the pod?

Hi,

Our of interest, does anyone know why G.fast is installed as a pod on the PCP cabinet, rather than just a different type of line card in the FTTC cabinet?


nick.

First guess .... not enough copper link capacity between DSLAM and PCP ?

Second guess, ... the fibre goes elsewhere ?

Third guess ... trying to reduce near end cross talk ?

And another one - it makes the copper line to the premises shorter if it doesn't go via the FTTC cab. A few metres makes a big difference with G.Fast.

Good call !

Probably just dosnt work in the DSLAMs.

Reducing crosstalk and length of cables makes sense.

Maybe also reduces the number of junctions?

In reply to a post by witchunt:

Probably just dosnt work in the DSLAMs.

This. No line card for the existing kit.

But why not put the Pod on the DSLAM Cabinet, which already has the fibre termination in it?

I think the cabinets are usually pretty full. They may also not have appropriate racking (or whatever) to support the additional hardware. I suspect if BT could do it then they would as adding additional pods will cost more.

As already said: line length.

My fibre cabinet is about 80m away from the PCP. This is admittedly quite extreme: but if they were ever to deploy G.fast here, putting it on the fibre cabinet would burn a good chunk of the link budget.

As well as what the others have said, the line would still have to go back to the PCP to get to the customer. Just like FTTC. Thus using up (by retention) a load of the linking copper pairs and decreasing the FTTC connection capacity unless another 100-pair linking cable (or whatever) was installed. With a high probability there would be no room in the PCP for the necessary patch panel.

The way it has been done simply needs a single fibre from the FTTC cabinet to the pod, and releases copper links for FTTC.