GPON FTTP Install.

Hello.

My question is about the location of the CSP and ONT .


It looks like BTOR are bringing GPON FTTP to our village sometime (hopefully soon ?), they have surveyed the ducts and installed draw ropes in them.


Our 'Underground' BT cable comes into our enclosed porch via an underground grey plastic duct of about 2" Dia or 5.08cm Dia and is about 100' or 30.5 metres to the BT manhole . (I know where the end is under a access panel in the floorboards) .

Can the CSP And ONT be located in our porch ?,

Had a word with our local Planning department who would Not like any box's being installed on the out side of our building as we live in a 'Special conservation area' .


There is power in the porch and my router and home Ethernet cables also I can make a 'Dedicate' location for the equipment.

CSP is usually on outside, the point being access is possible without entering a property.

If the duct does surface inside the porch then likely point where CSP will go though, for most properties it surfaces outside, so you are a bit different in that respect for underground served properties.

ONT can be some metres away from the CSP so inside property is normal, since not weather proof.

There is nothing installed outside of my house. The fibre cable runs along the wall and into the house where it then goes into the ONT. There isn't anything else installed before the ONT.

Current preference has moved back to using CSP as saves time stripping off the black UV proof outer, plus if internal cabling damaged e.g. dog eats it then just a new internal cable needed no need to replace back to the DP

Openreach engineers are generally very helpful - if you explain that this is a conservation area, and given that the ducting already goes into your porch anyway, I'm sure they'll be fine with the CSP going there too.

OK, mine was only installed about October last year so assumed it would be a fairly current design but it sounds like they change the way the install every time the wind changes

The external CSP fitted on my outer wall is around 12cm x 10cm in size and comes in 2 colours (grey & brown) so could be blended in with brickwork. I don't see why your local planning dept would object to such a small box. I suspect when you mentioned "box" to them, they assumed the worst eg 1 metre wide box

Mine is just outside the porch. The lighter grey casing was already there before FTTP was installed:

https://i.postimg.cc/V67bDk65/IMG-001.jpg
https://i.postimg.cc/SR3Yb1ch/IMG-002.jpg

as the duct already appears in the porch, for OR to fit an external CSP they would have to dig down to find the duct and break into it to bring the fibre out of the ground . fitting it in the porch sounds like a much better idea

Edited by threelegs (Wed 20-May-20 14:03:11)

That’s an old style CSP .... they are smaller and more ‘box like’ now, and in your pictured scenario, would be fitted directly on top of that grey capping, as have room to house the existing copper too.

The ONT should NOT be sited outside, it is internal kit, not waterproof.

On top of an external testing point being provided by a CSP, and Mr.S’s suggestion, there has been a higher than acceptable amount of field fit connectors failing (the SC end fitting into the ONT.

Yep my install was done in 2017.

Are the latest CSPs smaller as there's no need to coil spare fibres anymore?

These are guts of my CSP

https://i.postimg.cc/ZKRCN8x6/IMG-0360.jpg
https://i.postimg.cc/FKtRw25x/IMG-0361.jpg
https://i.postimg.cc/L8g5Cm7X/IMG-0362.jpg
https://i.postimg.cc/TY4hJKtF/IMG-0363.jpg
https://i.postimg.cc/PqmxH2dn/IMG-0364.jpg

Edited by deleted (Wed 20-May-20 17:46:28)

Same size and the coiling remains, since it also means there is usually some spare fibre if the first splice is not a good one.

In reply to a post by Zarjaz:

On top of an external testing point being provided by a CSP, and Mr.S’s suggestion, there has been a higher than acceptable amount of field fit connectors failing (the SC end fitting into the ONT.

Oh joy. Guess what's going into mine.

I had one pack up three days after fitting it, and the initial light loss reading was pukka ... like .3db difference from the reading at the CBT ...

I was never a fan anyway ... splice or be damned I say

In reply to a post by CarlTSpeak:

Oh joy. Guess what's going into mine.

Same here, do we know what the cause of failure is?

I do the like fact though on my install there is nothing extra visible from outside the property to what has been there for 30 years for the telephone wire. Unless you came inside the property and saw the ONT you'd not know fibre was installed. Seems a cleaner install and less likely to get tampered with or be affected by UV and the elements.

Fingers crossed I'm not in that higher than acceptable percentage group

Ok Thanks.

Will someone from BTOR come and do a survey ? , I have registered my interest with them.

Do Openreach provide the ONT ?.

Did I read that the New ONT are only One port and have No battery back up which could mean a UPS for power cuts (which we tend to get often).

Stage one (non appointed) will be done to provide service to a CSP at the property......

Stage two (on the date of install you’ll be given) will provide a single port ONT and no BBU, to an agreed location WITHIN REASON.

Someone from OpenReach will visit the property to check the route between the DP and where the CSP will be located. If clear they will run the fibre to the CSP.

OpenReach provide the ONT when running the fibre from the CSP to the inside of the property.

The ONT's are all 1 port yes.

Battery backup units are no longer provided by OpenReach.
It's up to the service provider to give a UPS to vulnerable customers where appropriate, such as the elderly and in areas with a poor mobile signal.

Edited by j0hn83 (Thu 21-May-20 20:16:43)

In reply to a post by Zarjaz:

Stage one (non appointed) will be done to provide service to a CSP at the property......

Stage two (on the date of install you’ll be given) will provide a single port ONT and no BBU, to an agreed location WITHIN REASON.

I want the CSP in the porch so may need an appointment.

O.R. have my contact details will they get in touch before this work starts ?.

In reply to a post by j0hn83:

It's up to the service provider to give a UPS to vulnerable customers where appropriate, such as the elderly and in areas with a poor mobile signal.

Sounds good, I think we qualify for both counts, so hope to get a free one.

Know of anyone who has a picture of a new style CSP and its dimensions

In reply to a post by Highland76:

Yep my install was done in 2017.

Are the latest CSPs smaller as there's no need to coil spare fibres anymore?

These are guts of my CSP

https://i.postimg.cc/ZKRCN8x6/IMG-0360.jpg
https://i.postimg.cc/FKtRw25x/IMG-0361.jpg
https://i.postimg.cc/L8g5Cm7X/IMG-0362.jpg
https://i.postimg.cc/TY4hJKtF/IMG-0363.jpg
https://i.postimg.cc/PqmxH2dn/IMG-0364.jpg

Not sure if it's me but your links do not work.

Can you get your tape measure out and measure the new CSP please.

Links still seem to be valid but here's a different one

https://imgur.com/a/R19T56P

Exact CSP dimensions are 16 x 10 cm but mine was installed in 2017. No idea on the dimensions of the latest CSP.

In reply to a post by Highland76:

Links still seem to be valid but here's a different one

https://imgur.com/a/R19T56P

Exact CSP dimensions are 16 x 10 cm but mine was installed in 2017. No idea on the dimensions of the latest CSP.

Thanks.
Yes the links do work, My fault, Laptop issue.

Going for our 'Government approved walk' yesterday I noticed new FTTP equipment on some BT poles and new manholes down this lane on the far end of our village , using the BT checker for the properties near there and None are enabled for FTTP yet only on Demand available at a silly cost.

Will the whole village/ area be enabled or will it go live in stages ?.

Can be weeks or months between some parts appearing and going live, due to how easy it is for some teams to carry on working

If a village is one of the named fibre villages then generally you see various phases, but for some it all almost goes live at the same time.

Unlikely anyone installing the kit will know the full story and even at higher levels things happen that change timelines all too often.

Thanks Mr S .
I will keep an eye on the checkers.

What I will do in the mean time is to install some more sockets in our covered enclosed porch (our porch is an area in the house where the consumer units and electric meter are also our BT landline and my DSL modem ) for the equipment and also first fit some plywood to the area were the CSP and ONT, my 16 port network switch and hardware firewall. (it's easier to screw things to the plywood then drilling and plugging the wall each time )

Do we know what size the new ONT and CSP are ?.

Trying to make some room for the ONT.

If a new Fibre/Phone cable is pulled in (remember it's coming straight into the porch, so no CSP !), Would the ONT have to be next to the Master Socket ?.

In an ideal world I would like them to be about 900mm apart and to make a neat cable job the phone cable would need to be 1500mm long to the master socket from the end of the dual cable end.

Is that doable ?.

In reply to a post by APTMAN:

If a new Fibre/Phone cable is pulled in (remember it's coming straight into the porch, so no CSP !)

Are you thinking the engineer will not install a CSP because the ducting comes up in the porch? I don't know the answer to this but will be interested to find out what the experts think.

Edited by deleted (Wed 03-Jun-20 16:46:02)

I was advised by BTOR it would possibly go straight into the ONT so no need for a CSP.

In reply to a post by APTMAN:

I was advised by BTOR it would possibly go straight into the ONT so no need for a CSP.

Thats good to know, as its ducted I don't believe they will pull in a new copper feed only a single fibre feed and the existing copper feed will remain.

I've only seen 1 FTTP install where the OpenReach ducting came right in to a property.
Coincidentally it came straight in to a porch.
I believe originally the ducting appeared on the outside of the property and the porch was added later.

Openreach pulled fibre through the ducting from the DP and in to the porch.
They then drilled a hole and fed the fibre outside and fitted a CSP to the outside of the porch.
The fibre then went from the CSP along the front of the house to where the homeowner wanted it drilled through in to the living room.

This was installed about 3-4 years ago before connectorised cables were a thing so a CSP was needed.

I'm not up to date on what fibre drop cables are being used at the moment so might be wrong but the only way to avoid splicing might be the connectorised cables that need the outer sheath removed for the internal section.
They come in pre made lengths.

There is also such a thing as an Internal Splice Point so this might be used, though I've never seen one.

Would be interested to hear how they eventually deploy this.

Worked on a new build estate in Maidenhead where the UG duct came up in the cupboard where the electric and fuse board were.

This was ‘old school’ BFT/CSP/EeZee bend to a four port ONT ...

In reply to a post by j0hn83:

There is also such a thing as an Internal Splice Point so this might be used, though I've never seen one.

It looks identical (including dimensions) to the original external CSP but in white (rather than grey or brown)

Edited by deleted (Thu 04-Jun-20 17:09:36)

In reply to a post by j0hn83:

Battery backup units are no longer provided by OpenReach.
It's up to the service provider to give a UPS to vulnerable customers where appropriate, such as the elderly and in areas with a poor mobile signal.

I think we qualify for both counts, so hope to get a free one.

Does anyone know if a Free UPS has ever been supplied for anyone's new FTTP connection. ?

In reply to a post by APTMAN:

I think we qualify for both counts, so hope to get a free one.

Does anyone know if a Free UPS has ever been supplied for anyone's new FTTP connection. ?

Yes.

They aren't supplied by OpenReach though and aren't specifically for FTTP either.
They are also required for VOIP based services on FTTC like BT's Digital Voice.

It's the responsibility of the ISP to provide a UPS so it's them you need to request this from.

The older OpenReach battery backup units (that are no longer supplied) are effectively useless for making emergency calls during a powercut as they only power the ONT.

I know of BT issuing these.
You can order and pay for 1 during your broadband order or request 1 for free if you meet the criteria.
If there's indoor mobile coverage BT want you to cough up for the BBU.

https://www.bt.com/help/landline/digital-voice--will...

I believe Sky have a UPS you can buy also.

The UPS kit from this company always used to be excellent, and I saw a current recommendation very recently on these forums.

In reply to a post by j0hn83:

If there's indoor mobile coverage BT want you to cough up for the BBU.

https://www.bt.com/help/landline/digital-voice--will...

Nice. That page says you can buy it from the BT Shop.

But when you follow that link, a search for "BBU" or "battery backup" or "UPS" turns up nothing. (Well, UPS turns up lots of GPS watches)

My next question is about the problems I keep seeing about TalkTalk overloaded 'Backhaul' , I was looking into going with TT Business would these overloading problems still affect there business services ?.

The battery back-up according to https://btsupport.custhelp.com/ci/fattach/get/542144... is made by CyberPower, the model number is DTB24U12V-BT1.

I can't see any evidence of them existing, the closest is the https://www.cyberpowersystems.com/product/telecom/in...

Edited by jpm (Fri 03-Jul-20 15:14:51)

Suspect its a model built specially for BT.

https://amzn.to/3dUhUOM at £43.49 from same people would provide an hour of uptime with a load of around 20W, i.e. router plus ONT

I'd normally look at APC simply because used to their big data centre kit, but even on cheaper end I would look at ones where the battery can be replaced and is a fairly standard size.

Today we had the CBT's fitted on the tops of the poles, our CBT on the pole near me the fibre goes overhead to the next pole down the pole to the strain relief device then to the manhole at the bottom of the pole, it will then go about another 50M to a splice point and then a local node that is about 50M away near the main fibre runs along our main road.
They also put in a total of 4x Fibre cables in (3x 36fibre's and 1x 8 fibre's) into the ducts that go further down our village lane.

So it looks like my fibre connection will go from the CBT down the pole into the manhole (that was put in for me some years ago as I am the only house with an underground duct to our house in our lane ) then it will go from the manhole to our house underground into our porch, No CSP straight into the ONT.

The problem with any mains UPS solution is that they are inefficient on two accounts - there are losses in converting battery -> mains-like power -> original PSU back to DC, and for small loads the power consumed by the UPS becomes significant.

For the batteries used in small APC UPS (7Ah or 12Ah), an equivalent DC UPS solution will typically provide between 2.5 and 3 times the runtime. When building FTTP-based systems requiring backup I've done away with the Openreach supplied mains PSU, and BBU when they were being fitted, running the ONT directly off a float-charged 12v lead-acid battery.

It depends. The original CBT installations were connectorised cable from the CBT, strip outer sheath where the cable entered the premises, add a field-fit plug to connect to ONT.

AFAIK there have been issues with higher than expected failure rates of the field-fit plug so two connectorised cables are used - an outdoor one as before, but run to a CSP, plus an indoor one run from the ONT to a new-style CSP where the two are connected together. I expect this makes replacing the indoor or outdoor section due to damage easier as the entire CBT - ONT run doesn't have to be replaced. I'm sure the usual Openreach people can correct/elaborate...

That is what i was expecting, regardless of it being overhead or UG.

Ubiquiti do a line on this there is a 24V and 54V version, link to the 24V version below.

https://www.ui.com/accessories/edgepower-24v/

Can be used to power a number of their routers directly. Oh if only the ONT's could be powered with PoE....

+1

Today had another surprise when the contractors came back to my manhole opposite our farm gates and said they have to put in a 4 port CBT in the manhole just for my use with only one port being lit for my connection they ran the fibre from that all the way underground to where the slitter is going in the next lane.

I was trying to find out when it's going to be lit up, they said it's up to BTOR , that could mean weeks,months or years

Love that you have your own CBT.. but yeah I feel you pain ..

There are a number of companies (e.g. Mikrotik, Ubiquiti, Netonix, Tycon Power, PoE Texas) which produce a variety of so-called passive PoE products - mostly for outdoor APs and fixed-wireless access networks operating at nominal 24v (most common), 48v or 54v, but I've not seen much for nominal 12v.

Even though it isn't built in to the ONT you could potentially use passive PoE injectors to combine the DC + data over a single network cable if providing mains close to the ONT is problematic. Being 12v does limit the distance, you would drop around 0.5v on a 10m Cat5e cable for a HG8110 ONT which is fine. For longer runs you could use an active 802.3af splitter at the ONT e.g. https://shop.poetexas.com/products/gaf-12v12w fed from a regular PoE switch or midspan injector.

Only been waiting 20 Years.

20 years ago I tried to get our village interested in doing a B4RN Project,
https://www.facebook.com/pg/B4RNorth/posts/

They Did not seem interested also found out all the 'Dark Fibre' in a part of the major fibre highway 1 mile away was all 'Lit' up and no spare fibre available.

Fibre's Not New I was using it 50 years ago.

In reply to a post by APTMAN:

Fibre's Not New I was using it 50 years ago.

50 is a long time!
I was using fibre to the desktop (in an industrial setting) for 10 Mbps ethernet back in the 1990s

I remember going to a factory in East London (Leyton I think) who manufactured it back in the 80's. No chance that still happens there now

BT has been using it for over 35years but not for access. Surprised there were many using it in 1970!.

The fibre I used 50 years ago was in an industrial setting and nothing to do with telecom's, it was all very new back then.
Also early days on LED's only red was made in a glass envelope (still got some ).
Lasers where only just being developed as well.

The modern fibre is totally different now.

The chaps gave me a few 'Off Cuts' today and the total fibre's combined in the cores of the 3x 36 fibre cable would = one fibre cable back then.


The fibre that's being laid in our village is made in India and the CBT's are made in Poland according to the labels I read today.


We also had a new device back then called a 'Modem', even though they had been invented in the 1960's not many people knew what they could be used for.
we rigged it up between two offices using the telephone wires to send data from electronic instruments (our telecom's chaps were not impressed) it worked very well, where would we be now without a Modem.
We rigged up a system using modems for sending data from all around the uk to our head offices back in the 1970's

Edit.... the Modem we used in the 1970's was only the IC Chip, we had to build the rest of the circuit on a small piece of 'Vero-board' circuit board and powered it from a lab power supply.

It was great being involved back then in the development of what we call now our normal technology.

Edited by APTMAN (Thu 30-Jul-20 22:56:35)

In reply to a post by Taras:

That is what i was expecting, regardless of it being overhead or UG.

So where is the CSP located for an overhead feed?

In reply to a post by Michael_Chare:

So where is the CSP located for an overhead feed?

Generally the same as for an underground feed - outside and low down so the engineer doing the splicing has access. The dropwire (fibre or duplex fibre and copper) is brought to the eves then down the outside of the building to the CSP.

In reply to a post by APTMAN:

It was great being involved back then in the development of what we call now our normal technology.

What specific development did you do and who for and how was that then feed back into what we now call our normal technology?

In reply to a post by Nick_W789:

Generally the same as for an underground feed - outside and low down so the engineer doing the splicing has access. The dropwire (fibre or duplex fibre and copper) is brought to the eves then down the outside of the building to the CSP.

It's hard to keep track of the installation methods - I thought overhead served properties used pre-terminated dropwire cable so no CSP was required?

In reply to a post by ft247:

In reply to a post by Nick_W789:

Generally the same as for an underground feed - outside and low down so the engineer doing the splicing has access. The dropwire (fibre or duplex fibre and copper) is brought to the eves then down the outside of the building to the CSP.

It's hard to keep track of the installation methods - I thought overhead served properties used pre-terminated dropwire cable so no CSP was required?

Connectorised fibre cables would, when first rolled out, go straight to the ONT with a field fit SC connector fitted by the installer for the final connection .
This was plagued with issues. They seem to fail a little too often. Stripping back any more than a couple of metres is a huge PITA and can sometimes damage the fibre within. If getting the overhead up took ages, and it often can, the customer would have to wait in to provide access. This method meant any future test access would be from the CBT (so not testing the final fibre drop) or need an appointment for access.