What exactly are these connections?

The Openreach fibre checker states that they have no plans to upgrade our area and yet the pole outside my next door neighbour's house has now got connectors on them. Am I correct in thinking that these are for use with connectorised fibre cables to take the fibre to individual properties?

I have found many images on the web of connectorised blocks but none that look just like these.

I hope that this link works for the image as I have been unable to find any guidance as to how best to include images on this forum posts.

Pole connectors

They are not connectors, they are fibre creep preventers

Edited by deleted (Tue 14-Jul-20 14:10:38)

Which means there is fibre going past the house to somewhere else.

Thanks for adding that Andrew. I was trying to find out what they were for. I can see the overhead fibre cable continuing in two directions so at least I know it is there. You have helped me understand in an earlier post what the various parts of the infrastructure mean and I am using this to try and get answers from Openreach as our community has gone literally overnight from "FTTP coming soon" to "no plans to upgrade your area". Clearly they have installed a of of kit already but are ignoring are questions as to why everything has stopped. I would love to know whether it is the government money that has run out or technical issues.

Can we have larger picture of the pole, so we can see more of the equipment on the pole

I am not very good with a camera but there is not much on this pole but at the top on the other side is this:
Top other side
and in the duct below they installed this back in 2016 although not much has happened since:
In duct manhole
plus these notices on all the poles:
Clue?
The next pole down has this at the top:
Next pole
and the one after that: 2 poles away
and at the end of the line of poles:
Green box on pole
Hopefully all that will indicate lots of activity which has now come to a a halt yet again. It is hard to believe that all this started in August 2016 and we are still on poor ADSL.

Edited by chriswillsher (Tue 14-Jul-20 15:50:32)

In reply to a post by chriswillsher:

The next pole down has this at the top:
Next pole
and the one after that: 2 poles away

Bingo those are fibre cbts. Which is good news

In reply to a post by chriswillsher:

Hopefully all that will indicate lots of activity which has now come to a a halt yet again. It is hard to believe that all this started in August 2016 and we are still on poor ADSL.

Currently the same but with 16mbit vdsl. And we are now with the cbts and none of it wired up with a hold on it. Our journey started in aug 2017.

Edited by Taras (Tue 14-Jul-20 16:00:24)

Have cbts here and overhead fibre in place, though not walked the route all the way, suspect still one gap.

Some areas go live a few postcodes at a time, and others it a big switch on, all depends on what the delay is.

In reply to a post by chriswillsher:

and in the duct below they installed this back in 2016 although not much has happened since:
In duct manhole

Those are fibre trays for splicing onto splitters. The splitters themselves are tiny - like a really thin USB memory stick.

I keep on forgetting that you are in the same boat Andrew. We have 6 postcodes in the stuck situation, which is about 100 properties. When you can see the equipment there and not connected - it is the most frustrating thing ever.

I hope yours gets completed quickly along with Chris'

Your 2rd pic tells me thats contractors work as them T keys (the yellow one) have been banned for years. Last time i asked i was told its a no no even with a managers risk assessment and you must find a alternative solution.

No wonder contractors are cheaper when they can play by other rules.

I did wonder how those "keys" worked. It does look like an old joint box from the laymen's eyes..

Yes, all the work that has been done here over the years has been by contractors. Remember that this particular work was carried out in September 2016. We got excited anticipating high speed broadband back then only to find nothing happened until they came back last year and upgraded all the now obsolete equipment and connection types. We are still waiting!

Picture 1 is a copper DP.

Picture 2 is a blown fibre node, possibly a splitter.

Picture 4 & 5 show, amongst other things, fibre CBT’s (connectorised blick terminal)

Picture 6 is pole mounted fibre DP node.

Many thanks for all your help. I will continue to hope that in spite of their denials, Openreach does plan to do something, sometime to deliver FTTP to our community.

Can see the postcodes going live getting closer

the open reach website has been known to say "we have no plans to upgrade" and then it happens and you then can order.

Have you tried other postcodes that you now know have cbts in the OR checker?

Sorry, I missed that question earlier. Yes, there are some post codes on our exchange that can order FTTP but it is a rural exchange (100% EO) that covers a large area. There are about 30 properties on my own post code that all get the same message.

For years we have been shown as "in scope" under the Scottish Government's DSSB programme and suddenly just after the exchange (Madderty) was showing officially as fibre enabled on the Scotland Superfast web page our message changed to "no plans".

It has been suggested that the money pot ran empty as this particular programme was due to end and its successor R100 not yet started. Either that or they hit a blockage that was classified as "too hard" to sort at that time.

There is a duct in the grass verge all the way from the exchange to outside my house that carries the copper service now (about 2.5Km). The duct stops just about at my house which is why there is fibre on several poles beyond my house covering the rest of the community.

Can anyone explain what the creep preventers actually do (other than prevent creep obviously)?

I keep seeing them and wondered in they were a form of strain relief.

Cheers

In reply to a post by MaryHinge:

Can anyone explain what the creep preventers actually do (other than prevent creep obviously)?

I keep seeing them and wondered in they were a form of strain relief.

Cheers

I think the fibre is coiled up round them as a tension thing rather than pulling on the fibre cables and pulling out the connectors.

I bit like how the copper line is wrapped up round that metal rod / spike at the top of the poles.

Paul

That was my first thought, but you have the pigtails at the top of the pole already doing that job?

Other random theories:

- Cable storage to allow the enclosure containing the splice trays etc to be taken down from the pole and allow splicing etc to take place easily and ground level?
- Cable storage to allow adjustment of the amount of slack in longer fibre runs between poles?
- An Illuminati conspiracy?

I want to know why some have 2, some have 4, and in my nearest pole has 6 of them

In reply to a post by Taras:

I want to know why some have 2, some have 4, and in my nearest pole has 6 of them

When I would imagine 1 would do the job each pole unless I'm mistaken.

From the OP's photo it looks there there is one per fibre cable.

I hope that this link works for the image as I have been unable to find any guidance as to how best to include images on this forum posts.

Pole connectors

Multiple cables?

In reply to a post by MrSaffron:

Multiple cables?

Good point.

In reply to a post by MaryHinge:

Can anyone explain what the creep preventers actually do (other than prevent creep obviously)?

I keep seeing them and wondered in they were a form of strain relief.

See below taken from an excellent article by Andrew

The purpose of the fibre creeper is to avoid the differential in expansion and contraction between the overhead fibres outer and glass inner putting stress on fibre splices over the years

Cheers - I had seen that article at the time it was published and had forgotten all about it.