Incoming fibre box - commercial premises

I have just taken over a commercial premises with this box in the services cupboard. My guess is that it's infrastructure for a leased line:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/8u5b5itx3jjevaw/Fibre%20Bo...

Can anyone give me any general information on it?

And to reinstate it, am I correct that the only way is to contract with a leased line provider? (I.e. no FTTP or similar products are available to it). Openreach says that copper broadband is the only product available on the street

It's a fibre joint - the black and yellow cable is the external cable and the white ones are internal. They'll probably terminate in a panel somewhere, which may or may not have LTE attached.

Of course, the previous occupant may have removed that.

It can be used for any fibre-terminated service (usually a leased line) but not for a PON/FTTP.

Looks like there are already two white shotgun blown fibre tube connections running from that joint box. So it likely serves (or did at one time) two different connections. Judging by the state of them one is more recent than the original.

If you decide to take this up with a leased line provider, they should be able to see from their ordering portals that the premises already has Openreach 'tails' present so this would speed up delivery potentially (and also means no potential for ECC charges).

The handwritten lettering gives the location of where the tails run to; the local exchange code and the nearest T-node it is spliced through.

Good luck.

Correct, that's for a leased line and cannot be used for FTTP.

Very true.

Can go the other way however if needing an EAD hanging off 'FTTP' infra. where there's no other fibre around. Just not via the typical CBT and drop though.

In reply to a post by Pheasant:

If you decide to take this up with a leased line provider, they should be able to see from their ordering portals that the premises already has Openreach 'tails' present so this would speed up delivery potentially (and also means no potential for ECC charges).

It still comes with a roughly £2K connection charge from Openreach to activate the circuit, even if fibre is already present.

However, if you take a 36 month contract then typically there is no up-front payment because the reseller buries it in the monthly rental.

Some providers have a "deferred" installation option, which means that you can take an initial 12 month contract but the connection charge is not paid up front. If you don't renew after 12 months then you pay the deferred charge, and if you don't renew after 24 months you pay (e.g.) half the deferred charge, but if you renew to 36 months the charge is wiped.

Yep with the 36-month agreements they'll typically 'fund' up to and including £3K-ish worth of ECCs and 'lose' any connection charges.

Obv. commercially they have less room to manoeuvre on 12-month contracts. So ECCs could expected to be front loaded and connection costs etc.

Thanks all.

I do believe it has Openreach 'tails' but candlerb's explanation of the £2k activation charge explains why I am seeing no savings off generic published leased line rates, which I knew have some ECC charges absorbed into them.

I was hoping for a better leased line deal (in price or length of contract) given the infrastructure is all in place.

OR the ability to take advantage of some nicer priced FTTP (etc) packages - but again seems that's not an option.

Better get my wallet out!

Have you had final (not estimated) quotes from various providers or are you relying on the likes of linebroker.co.uk ?

That is a DCB ( dual circuit box ) and something of an old fashioned but still used and usable part of the OR Ethernet network, rather than BFT ( blown fibre tubing ) the two white ‘cables’ exiting the DCB are likely to be COF8002 , a two fibre cable that can be used on internal runs , chances are this DCB is simply where the external cable enters the building , another one or two splice splice points will have existed , and may still exist, no doubt where the comms room for the building was ( or possibly where the two comms rooms were, given that there are two COF 8002’s,) the other possibility is that the previous occupant had more than two circuits and the first two leased lines exhausted the first cable , but often in cases like this , those cables will be cut and effectively now useless, although the feed into the building ( the black and yellow cable ) probably is still connected to a ‘Node’ , TYUFW being the T code.

As far as pricing , when speaking to a ‘seller’ , mention of this existing kit may help, but as stated it’s also my understanding that the first couple of £K of construction costs are included anyway…but obviously don’t expect to be paying residential FTTP prices with a business grade fibre leased line.

Edited by Iniltous (Fri 16-Dec-22 17:24:51)