New Additions to Telegraph Poles

Noticed some new hardware being fitted to telegraph poles in our local area. These "trays" have been fitted to any telegraph poles that have an existing CBT. These don't look like the "space expander" trays used to fit additional CBTs on busy poles (as you can see utilisation is not high here at all...)

VM are currently cabling/fibre-ing this area too, so I wondered if that was related. Do Virgin run OH drops?

Any clues? Something to do with Wi-Fi/5G perhaps?

https://imgur.com/a/S8I5c9E

The bit of hardware I'm referring to is the tray/bracket on the right-side of the pole next to the CBT.

Cheers!

Edited by themainframe (Thu 01-Sep-22 11:59:18)

Looks like another variety of standoff bracket to mount a distributor, just not the usual punched and bent stainless ones. I doubt it’s 5G or WiFi.

Time will tell.

I’d agree, looks like options on how it can be fixed too ……..

I’ve said before, and say again, all this shizzle up poles, no thought for the poor sods who have to climb them. The work position belt should be around the pole behind the DP/CBT …. that can’t be done here.

Time to buy shares in hoist companies

I would've preferred a point-to point dark fibre network, like Swisscom have installed, but what we've got instead are 110 completely different fibre networks clamouring over each other to overbuild.

If you think about it rationally for a moment its complete and utter madness. But hey ho.

In reply to a post by Pheasant:

If you think about it rationally for a moment its complete and utter madness.

As was the 30 or so cable TV networks that Thatcher&co decided we needed; and 30 years later they've become one. "Competition" doesn't seem to work in fundamental infrastructure, we only have one set of water and gas pipes, and one set of electricity cables, one set of roads. Perhaps what we needed was Openreach and a direct competitor, whom were both in 99% of the UK with the 1% left split between them. But don't ask a politician, they're too busy being on TV.

The cable companies couldn't make it work when they had their own franchise areas . No chance all these altnets will survive

In reply to a post by witchunt:

The cable companies couldn't make it work when they had their own franchise areas . No chance all these altnets will survive

Agreed, mergers will happen in the next few years.

Imagine what the patching locations would look like for P2P fibre once a Virgin Media tech had been in there, though.

oh you cruel man 😂

Been saying similar for a few years now ….

In reply to a post by Pheasant:

I would've preferred a point-to point dark fibre network, like Swisscom have installed, but what we've got instead are 110 completely different fibre networks clamouring over each other to overbuild.

If you think about it rationally for a moment its complete and utter madness. But hey ho.

Certainly it would allow more types of services, including dedicated higher-bandwidth services; but I don't buy the argument that it would have made any difference to overbuild.

There are two main reasons that companies are overbuilding Openreach currently:

1. They get first-mover advantage by rolling out in places that Openreach haven't done yet
2. They believe they can do it cheaper than renting capacity on the Openreach network

I'm sure both would points be equally true if a single organization like Openreach were rolling out dedicated point-to-point fibres, instead of GPON. Therefore, there would be just as much overbuild as today.

That's unless you propose to *forbid* anyone from overbuilding? That puts us in the position where there is very little incentive for the incumbent to build at anything more than a snail's pace.

Would Fujitsu have been better with their proposal to rollout FTTP rather BT's FTTC? If Fujitsu had been allowed to go ahead alt-nets would have had much stiffer opposition and might not have started.

As it is, were it not for an FTTP alt-net I would be stuck with sub 2Mbps ADSL.

It looks like the brackets Virgin Media have been using round here for their overhead deployments.

Unlike the CBTs used by the likes of Openreach and Pinemedia who use Corning and CityFibre who use Hellerman Tyton units on the pole where they have the optical connectors inside/on the unit the Virgin Media ones seem to have a ~30cm tail for each drop that is coiled inside that mounting bracket.

If it is anything like round here you will see them taped to the bottom of the poles prior to them installing them properly on the bracket.

In reply to a post by candlerb:

In reply to a post by Pheasant:

I would've preferred a point-to point dark fibre network, like Swisscom have installed, but what we've got instead are 110 completely different fibre networks clamouring over each other to overbuild.

If you think about it rationally for a moment its complete and utter madness. But hey ho.

Certainly it would allow more types of services, including dedicated higher-bandwidth services; but I don't buy the argument that it would have made any difference to overbuild.

We can only go by the experience of other places. The UK seems to be a huge anomaly in terms of competing physical networks powered largely by PIA. Had Openreach committed to providing point to point dark fibre does it seem likely PIA would be a thing?

In reply to a post by XGS_Is_On:

Had Openreach committed to providing point to point dark fibre does it seem likely PIA would be a thing?

From a purely *commercial* point of view, I don't see why a monopoly dark-fibre infrastructure should be any different to a monopoly PON infrastructure.

The customers who care about symmetric 1G/1G or 10G/10G services are a minute fraction, and do not form a significant part of an altnet's business case.

The operating cost of a dark-fibre network doesn't involve running any OLTs, but it *does* involve manually repatching customers when they move between ISPs; it also involves hosting more OLTs and/or splitters in suitable points in the network. So I'm not convinced that the monopoly DF network would be any cheaper to provide at wholesale.