Looks like BT OR has started its Fibre build on my street

Today, I noticed several BT OR vans and several Bods pulling blue ropes through the ducting between the access chambers in the footpaths, both sides of the road, I'll keep an eye out for those vans with the big reel of conduit they blow the fibre into

Edited by tommy45 (Tue 17-Dec-24 16:47:20)

At local level, it is less likely to be blown fibre through tubing these days.

I assumed they would have some protective tubing within the ducts

Each individual fibre has its own variously coloured sheathing. These are grouped in units, this sheathed again, and finally a thicker covering over the whole shebang.

All similar to copper cables really.

I did wonder how they were arranged, thanks

Openreach still do blown fibre for EAD / Ethernet / leased circuits and will now leverage the same fibre infrastructure for FTTP in many cases to deliver these services. All but the very last bits (CBT and drop etc).

All in the name of convergence, efficiency and de-duplication.

In reply to a post by Pheasant:

All in the name of convergence, efficiency and de-duplication.

That's as maybe, but I have an Openreach fibre "flowerpot" on my pole which is part of a recently-installed (well, 3 years ago) leased line connection to the farm at the end of the road and OR have absolutely refused to entertain any thoughts of deploying domestic FTTP from it. My assumption was like yours, that they would simply reuse the physical installation to deploy the residential service, but the guys who actually did it said that this almost never happens and I would need to wait for another load of fibre to come up the street instead. It never did...

I think the truth is half-way in between.

Openreach can now use the same Fibre Aggregation Nodes that serve FTTP and FTTC, for leased lines. But between the FAN and the property, I believe they are separate networks.

The leased line which was installed 3 years ago *might* have connected to the local FAN instead of the nearest leased line node; it depends on exactly when the policy changed. But even if they did, the fibre cable carrying the leased line from FAN to your property would not be repurposed for FTTP. FTTP is built differently, with CBTs connecting back to a splitter node, and then the splitter node connected back to the FAN. The splitter node would likely not be located where your track joint "flowerport" is, and would need its own cable back to the FAN.

A few years ago OR decided that the two separate networks ( leased line and FTTP ) made no sense and a Single Fibre Network was envisaged, but as already stated , in practical terms that simply means that if a leased line is ordered and the customer is closer to a FTTP aggregation than a leased line node , a spare fibre in the cable to the AGG Node is used , so a fibre that originates at the OCR rather than the OFR , ( Optical Consolidation Rack , Optical Flexibility Rack ) and a similar vein , if a single new build residential development ,currently remote from any FTTP infrastructure, but close to a leased line node , then for convenience and time saving , a splitter or splitters can be connected via cables that originate from the OFR, ( previously OFR exclusively Ethernet and OCR exclusively FTTP /FTTC ) the addition of optical tie cables existing between the OCR’s and OFR’s , enabling this one fibre network connectivity, however both those are relatively legacy devices, all new single fibre network racks at the headend exchange are now ODF , Optical Distribution Frame .

In the main though , most Ethernet is still from OFR’s and FTTP from OCR/ODF , there is relatively little crossover …generally businesses are already near existing leased line nodes , and residential addresses are near aggregation nodes so not much need to deviate from the original type of node for the product type , if sufficiently interested here is a video
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6595-Xv-pZk

In reply to a post by daern:

In reply to a post by Pheasant:

All in the name of convergence, efficiency and de-duplication.

That's as maybe, but I have an Openreach fibre "flowerpot" on my pole which is part of a recently-installed (well, 3 years ago) leased line connection to the farm at the end of the road and OR have absolutely refused to entertain any thoughts of deploying domestic FTTP from it. My assumption was like yours, that they would simply reuse the physical installation to deploy the residential service, but the guys who actually did it said that this almost never happens and I would need to wait for another load of fibre to come up the street instead. It never did...

That's slightly different.

Scenario 1: Openreach *wont* use already their installed (dedicated) EAD / leased line fibre infrastructure for the delivery of FTTP, as per your example above.

Scenario 2: Openreach *will* however utilise their existing FTTP infrastructure, where it makes sense to do so, for the delivery of leased line / EAD / Ethernet infrastructure as far as possible. The optical pathway (single fibre or more) remain isolated all the way from the handover exchange to the premises, but that fibre(s) will be in spine and cabling that routes with FTTP infra, if that makes sense.

I have scenario 2 here in Suffolk, where I had installed FTTPoD back in 2019. In 2022/23 I had a DIA service installed that utilised that previously installed FTTP infrastructure - including the spine up to the FTTP aggregation node and all the way up to the splitter node. So basically just not including the FTTP Connectorised Block Terminal and drop cable.

Edited by Pheasant (Wed 18-Dec-24 11:25:03)