Anyone know what these pods are?

Hi all

Openreach have been running loads of fibre in to ducting around my town (Tenby) and I noticed them installing these pods yesterday:

https://postimg.cc/gallery/1qh8b8S

Anyone know what they are? The Openreach Fibre When and Where site says they are installing full fibre (1000Mbps it says) within the next 12 months, so I'm assuming it is to do with that, however, these look like GFast pods though to me. Thought they weren't installing that anymore.

If it is Gfast, my copper is around 600m in length, even though the cab is only 100m from my house (it takes several detours apparently!!), so GFast isn't going to do anything for me is it?

They were putting loads of fibre into the chamber in front of the cabinet in the pic with a hedge in it (that's my cab). Would they need to run any extra fibre if it was going to be GFast??

In reply to a post by WelshWArrior:

They were putting loads of fibre into the chamber in front of the cabinet in the pic with a hedge in it (that's my cab). Would they need to run any extra fibre if it was going to be GFast??

A subtended OLT headend - basically the FTTP optical line termination (headend) is situated inside the street cabinet rather than in a big BT handover exchange building, many miles away.

Used by Openreach where they have decided it's more cost effective/efficient to use this method of FTTP deployment often or not in sparser rural type settings.

Thanks for the reply. I have literally just been reading up on SHEs and thought that might be what it is!

No worries. More here for any interested folks:

https://www.ispreview.co.uk/index.php/2023/08/openre...

How do you tell that's not just a VDSL expansion pod?

In reply to a post by candlerb:

How do you tell that's not just a VDSL expansion pod?

That red/yellow sticker looks at odds with that theory to me

https://www.thinkbroadband.com/assets/images/news-20...

mini olt in the field via tbb 😁

All pods are DC powered from the DSLAM cabinet, the sticker is there due to the possibility they could become live, though unlikely

Edited by witchunt (Sat 16-Sep-23 17:23:35)

In reply to a post by Taras:

mini olt in the field

Wonder where the handover exchange is then for Tenby, must be some distance to need "this"

I would guess at Haverfordwest. The SHE's serve 2 purposes. They extend the distance from the HE exchange , and they also reduce the number of fibres . Many are used purely for the latter which is why some are located relaitively close to HE exchanges in urban areas to save on new fibre spines.

Edited by witchunt (Sat 16-Sep-23 17:30:24)

Ooh nice to actually see what's inside. I drove past when they were installing, but there were quite a few working in front and it's a busy mini roundabout, so couldn't stop.

Yes it is Haverfordwest. I think that exchange serves all the towns close-by that are getting FTTP.

Plus, I know BT are installing FTTP in town as confirmed by Openreach When and Where.. On top of that, there is no need for VDSL expansion, as nothing new has been built nearby and there are several vacant house in my estate, which would free up capacity if needed.

In reply to a post by witchunt:

I would guess at Haverfordwest. The SHE's serve 2 purposes. They extend the distance from the HE exchange , and they also reduce the number of fibres . Many are used purely for the latter which is why some are located relaitively close to HE exchanges in urban areas to save on new fibre spines.

How much autonomy do these SHEs typically have in the event of a power outage?

Presumably the OLTs sitting inside a HE exchange building are happy to chug away until the diesel genset supply runs dry.

How much autonomy do these SHEs typically have in the event of a power outage?

They will run off the DSLAM batteries, however long they last, if fitted!

In reply to a post by witchunt:

How much autonomy do these SHEs typically have in the event of a power outage?

They will run off the DSLAM batteries, however long they last, if fitted!

Thanks. Thought that was the case.

There ya go …. thank you.

In reply to a post by witchunt:

I would guess at Haverfordwest. The SHE's serve 2 purposes. They extend the distance from the HE exchange , and they also reduce the number of fibres . Many are used purely for the latter which is why some are located relaitively close to HE exchanges in urban areas to save on new fibre spines.

@witchunt do you have a view on numbers of SHE that Openreach have deployed to date? Even just ballpark numbers.

TIA

In reply to a post by witchunt:

some are located relatively close to HE exchanges in urban areas to save on new fibre spines.

I can see the financial attraction for Openreach but in that configuration it does defeat the point of a passive network as theres still going to be unnecessary kit humming on the corner of streets

Edited by PCJM40 (Sat 16-Sep-23 22:59:59)

it defeats it being purely passive but it has some huge savings and speed of deployment, especially with pole deployment of last mile fibre ..

It could even be used to deploy fttp and then at a later date remove it to provide a full passive spine.

In reply to a post by Taras:

it has some huge savings and speed of deployment

Yes this is true but I wouldnt want to be connected via a SHE as I can see fault resolution being slower should a hardware issue occur.

In reply to a post by Taras:

It could even be used to deploy fttp and then at a later date remove it to provide a full passive spine.

Cant see Openreach spending the extra money once it goes live.

Several hundred

Thanks again @ witchunt for your insight.

That’s really quite widespread!!

As there’s around what 500-550? or so head end / handover FTTP exchanges in the country, SHEs are really up there as as second FTTP deployment approach, rather than some niche “exception to the rule” as is sometimes implied.

Over a thousand headend exchanges.

Thanks for the answers so far, a couple more questions.

With the SHE now in place, is that most of the work done? Do they run fibre from the SHE around the estate before the fibre is live, or wait until a customer places an order?

Does the fibre coming from the SHE usually follow the path of the existing ducting, or take the shortest route? Reason being, the copper comes out of my cab (one in pic with a hedge behind it) and then instead of going straight into my estate, it heads out of town to a SCP around 300m away, before coming back to my estate, through a different entrance, meaning the fibre would have to be a lot longer (at least 300m) than if it just went straight into the estate.

Finally, I probably know the answer to tis, but any idea on an average timescale for this to now be live?

Cheers. Not sure why I thought it was 500 to 550. Memory must be fading 😂

Yes I can see now from another conversation with @kitcat several years ago that out the 5500 exchange estate, after rationalisation some 1000 to 1200 would be kept as headend exchanges

In reply to a post by PCJM40:

Yes this is true but I wouldnt want to be connected via a SHE as I can see fault resolution being slower should a hardware issue occur.

It should only be an extra point of failure[lots of points of failure at the point though]

In reply to a post by PCJM40:

Cant see Openreach spending the extra money once it goes live.

Also raises the questions of future deployment of xgs-pon and 25/40gb pon too

Edited by Taras (Sun 17-Sep-23 15:56:39)

In reply to a post by Taras:

In reply to a post by PCJM40:

Yes this is true but I wouldnt want to be connected via a SHE as I can see fault resolution being slower should a hardware issue occur.

It should only be an extra point of failure[lots of points of failure at the point though]

In reply to a post by PCJM40:

Cant see Openreach spending the extra money once it goes live.

Also raises the questions of future deployment of xgs-pon and 25/40gb pon too

There's enough space in that cab to fit another 1RU OLT next to the existing one, if needs must. Alternatively the line card would have spare ports to drop a higher PON bandwidth optic in and they'll just combine the existing and new wavelengths through a WDM co-existence element before it hits the PON.

No biggie I don't think from an upgradability perspective.

Not unusual to have multiple SHE's in one pod

Are they all Nokia OLTs - or do you use any Adtran for example?

Nokia and Huawei are the only ones I have seen so far

In reply to a post by Pheasant:

@witchunt do you have a view on numbers of SHE that Openreach have deployed to date? Even just ballpark numbers.

TIA

According to this recent article it's somewhere around 100 SHE's nationwide.

Openreach told Silicon UK that its engineers have now deployed around 100 individual ‘SHEs’, across the UK, connecting up around 160,000 homes and businesses that would otherwise have been beyond commercial reach.

This has helped Openreach avoid the need to build over 1,262 km of new fibre cabling or ‘spine’.

Edited by j0hn83 (Mon 25-Sep-23 13:05:56)

Cheers John - I'm guessing the article is not totally accurate/up to date as @witchunt noted above that there were "several hundred" in existence.

In reply to a post by Pheasant:

Cheers John - I'm guessing the article is not totally accurate/up to date as @witchunt noted above that there were "several hundred" in existence.

With all due respect to witchunt (who is indeed a wealth of knowledge) I'm guessing it's accurate. The figure fits with that of other respectable media outlets.

https://www.commsbusiness.co.uk/content/news/openrea...

Around 100 individual SHEs have now been deployed across the UK, connecting up around 160,000 homes and businesses that would otherwise have been beyond commercial reach.

https://telecoms.com/523016/openreach-shaves-10m-off...

Openreach said last Thursday that it has deployed around 100 SHEs across the UK, connecting 160,000 premises that would otherwise be too costly to serve with FTTP.

Openreach briefed the "around 100" themselves at the start of August.
Can't see them having installed another 200+ in that time seeing as they have taken a few years to hit 100

Edited by j0hn83 (Wed 27-Sep-23 17:46:02)

Do these articles numbers add up?

100 SHEs across the UK, connecting 160,000 premises

then they say

a single SHE location has the capacity to connect up to 1,000 additional homes and businesses

So if we multiple 100 SHEs each one having the capacity for 1,000 properties how do we get to 160,000 properties?

If it is 1,000 per SHE and they are able to reach 160,000 properties then isn't the true number 160 SHEs installed?

Yes. As witchunt points out you can have multiple SHE's in a single pod.

In reply to a post by j0hn83:

Yes. As witchunt points out you can have multiple SHE's in a single pod.

I am guessing there are more than 100 SHEs out there so the press release is wrong, they probably mean 100 SHE locations which contain a total of 160ish SHEs

Edit: even my numbers above don't add up, if 1,000 properties per SHE location there must be 160 SHE locations to make up the 160,000 properties so there must be several hundred SHE's installed at a guess.

Edited by PCJM40 (Wed 27-Sep-23 16:51:43)

In reply to a post by PCJM40:

In reply to a post by j0hn83:

Yes. As witchunt points out you can have multiple SHE's in a single pod.

I am guessing there are more than 100 SHEs out there so the press release is wrong, they probably mean 100 SHE locations which contain a total of 160ish SHEs

It's just semantics.
Openreach often site the number of locations. Around 100 SHE's locations.

An example of this is there are around 1200 Head-End exchanges but each 1 can have multiple Head-Ends inside.
I don't see Openreach writing the number of individual Head-Ends anywhere.

ISPReview quote identical figures

https://www.ispreview.co.uk/index.php/2023/08/openre...

Engineers have now deployed around 100 individual ‘SHEs’ across the UK, connecting up around 160,000 premises (homes and businesses) that would otherwise have been beyond commercial reach, and avoiding the need to build over 1,262 km of new fibre cabling or ‘spine’.

Edit: just saw your edit.
It's not 1000 premises per location. It's 1024 per SHE and you can fit more than 1 in each pod.
157 SHE's can do just over 160,000 homes which could be achieved from 78 sites assuming a max of 2 SHE's per pod.

Edited by j0hn83 (Wed 27-Sep-23 16:59:51)

Thats fine then, so witchunt's answer about how many SHEs (not locations) wasn't wrong then as it would take more than 100 SHE's to get to 160,000 properties.

Edit: based on the corrections you're having to make for their press release its clear their press release is .......

Edited by PCJM40 (Wed 27-Sep-23 17:09:51)

In reply to a post by PCJM40:

Thats fine then, so witchunt's answer about how many SHEs (not locations) wasn't wrong then as it would take more than 100 SHE's to get to 160,000 properties.

That's not several hundred though is it.

No idea why it's so important. I don't think witchunt was intending on being deadly accurate and was more than likely guessing based on the number he's come across and extrapolating that across the country.

Edited by j0hn83 (Wed 27-Sep-23 17:10:46)

In reply to a post by j0hn83:

That's not several hundred though is it.

Neither is it 100 SHEs like the press release says so I would trust witchunt rather than a inaccurate press release from Openreach.

In reply to a post by PCJM40:

In reply to a post by j0hn83:

That's not several hundred though is it.

Neither is it 100 SHEs like the press release says so I would trust witchunt rather than a inaccurate press release from Openreach.

Good for you. I'll go with widely reported the figures from the company itself rather than a guy on the internet.

Openreachs own press release: https://www.openreach.com/news/full-fibre-boosting-t...

Edited by j0hn83 (Wed 27-Sep-23 17:44:53)

In reply to a post by j0hn83:

In reply to a post by PCJM40:

In reply to a post by j0hn83:

That's not several hundred though is it.

Neither is it 100 SHEs like the press release says so I would trust witchunt rather than a inaccurate press release from Openreach.

Good for you. I'll go with widely reported the figures from the company itself rather than a guy on the internet.

The inaccurate numbers from the press release are clear for everyone to see, basic maths from first year junior school. The press release clearly wasn't checked by a qualified engineer or they would have spotted the clear schoolboy mistake. If you have trust in something that doesn't add up then good for you.

more than likely guessing based on the number he's come across and extrapolating that across the country.

No, but thanks anyway

I think the problem is that openreach/BT often refer to wider areas as locations. For example , this was evident during the recent better workplace program where many more buildings were/are being vacated than the number of locations accounted for.
So that 100 locations will account for many more individual SHE's.
Hope that helps everyone

The photograph at https://telecoms.com/523016/openreach-shaves-10m-off... actually shows someone holding an EV Vehicle plug for single or three-phase charging, rather than something to do with a 'subtended headend' !!!

Cheers!

In reply to a post by witchunt:

I think the problem is that openreach/BT often refer to wider areas as locations. For example , this was evident during the recent better workplace program where many more buildings were/are being vacated than the number of locations accounted for.
So that 100 locations will account for many more individual SHE's.
Hope that helps everyone

It does. Thank you as always 👍

Edited by Pheasant (Wed 27-Sep-23 22:41:46)

In reply to a post by Ancient_Mariner:

The photograph at https://telecoms.com/523016/openreach-shaves-10m-off... actually shows someone holding an EV Vehicle plug for single or three-phase charging, rather than something to do with a 'subtended headend' !!!

Cheers!

Haha. That's called a "Type 2" connector.

It's the now standard connector used to connect EVs (both here, across Europe and also Australia/NZ) to an AC power source. Or more correctly called EVSE (electric vehicle supply equipment) rather than "chargers".

These plug connectors can handle both single and polyphase AC supply to the vehicle, depending on the EVSE and the vehicle.

Perhaps editorial was getting confused with the story around BT doing a pilot study to potentially convert their (to be) FTTC disused street cabs to EVSE charge points.

[Admission: long time EV convert / nerd here]

Edited by Pheasant (Wed 27-Sep-23 22:48:56)

In reply to a post by witchunt:

So that 100 locations will account for many more individual SHE's.

Thank you, my trusted person on the internet

In reply to a post by j0hn83:

I'll go with widely reported the figures from the company itself rather than a guy on the internet.

Edited by PCJM40 (Wed 27-Sep-23 22:52:50)

In reply to a post by Pheasant:

That's called a "Type 2" connector.

It's the now standard connector used to connect EVs (both here, across Europe and also Australia/NZ) to an AC power source. Or more correctly called EVSE (electric vehicle supply equipment) rather than "chargers".

These plug connectors can handle both single and polyphase AC supply to the vehicle, depending on the EVSE and the vehicle.

Perhaps editorial was getting confused with the story around BT doing a pilot study to potentially convert their (to be) FTTC disused street cabs to EVSE charge points.

So how do I connect it to my router??? 😎🤣

Edited by PCJM40 (Wed 27-Sep-23 22:57:42)

In reply to a post by PCJM40:

In reply to a post by Pheasant:

That's called a "Type 2" connector.

It's the now standard connector used to connect EVs (both here, across Europe and also Australia/NZ) to an AC power source. Or more correctly called EVSE (electric vehicle supply equipment) rather than "chargers".

These plug connectors can handle both single and polyphase AC supply to the vehicle, depending on the EVSE and the vehicle.

Perhaps editorial was getting confused with the story around BT doing a pilot study to potentially convert their (to be) FTTC disused street cabs to EVSE charge points.

So how do I connect it to my router??? 😎🤣

How can i connect it to the future RTX 5090 ? #AskingForNvidia 😂🙃🙈

I agree. From what I've seen in my town, with the amount of SHEs now installed, there must be more than a few hundred in the UK.

My town only has 20 fibre cabs, but I've seen at least 4 SHEs installed here now.

In reply to a post by Pheasant:

[Admission: long time EV convert / nerd here]

I don't want to drag this thread off-topic, but I will take the opportunity to ask... which UK based EV web forums would you recommend? In other words, where might I find the helpful and informative Pheasants of the EV world online?! Many thanks!

Hey 🙏

SpeakEV is good 👍

Tesla used to use nvidia processors in their cars, then they shifted to Intel and now you can get them with Ryzens. So just plug it into your model Y or 3 😂

My nearest cab had a vdsl expansion pod added back in ~ 2019. It had no power sticker on it originally, but it now does(added sometime this year), is that just H&S or a precursor to SHE ? It really doesn't matter how we get fttp but just that we do (which is apparently meant to happen from next month).

I think they are being added for power compliance and to try and deter people from blocking access to the cabinets. The pods themselves are DC powered.

Yeah i did think it was that, but the village has had very little in the way of fibre cable pulling, just lots of cbts and now lots of pole provides.

The new stickers are being applied all over. Seen loads. Nothing to do with FTTP.

In reply to a post by WelshWArrior:

Hi all

Openreach have been running loads of fibre in to ducting around my town (Tenby) and I noticed them installing these pods yesterday:

https://postimg.cc/gallery/1qh8b8S

Anyone know what they are? The Openreach Fibre When and Where site says they are installing full fibre (1000Mbps it says) within the next 12 months, so I'm assuming it is to do with that, however, these look like GFast pods though to me. Thought they weren't installing that anymore.

If it is Gfast, my copper is around 600m in length, even though the cab is only 100m from my house (it takes several detours apparently!!), so GFast isn't going to do anything for me is it?

They were putting loads of fibre into the chamber in front of the cabinet in the pic with a hedge in it (that's my cab). Would they need to run any extra fibre if it was going to be GFast??

That's not Gfast pod. The Gfast pod have to be fitted on the PTSN cabinet not the FTTC cabinet.

Edited by adslmax (Sat 30-Sep-23 23:24:47)

One of the two pods featured was connected to a PCP. Reading the rest of the thread before commenting has a lot going for it.

In reply to a post by adslmax:

That's not Gfast pod. The Gfast pod have to be fitted on the PTSN cabinet not the FTTC cabinet.

Max, read the rest of the thread. It would have been more vdsl2 ports or a mini olt.......