I'm not going to dispute what you've said above as it could be said that Cornwall is a test-bed for overhead fibre which may well back-fire over time, but to quote from this announcement for example from a couple of months ago;

BT has achieved efficiencies since the programme began, enabling the company to set the more ambitious coverage target with its partners. Many of these efficiencies have been achieved through innovations that have been pioneered in the county including the use of lightweight overhead fibre cables.

No doubt they've started deploying the same technology elsewhere, but I agree, only time will tell.

Edited by Rastus (Fri 17-May-13 14:57:32)

I don't know if back-fire is the right phrase there, as it is all a process of learning by doing.

[Off-topic-ish - Openreach recently put out a briefing that indicated their temporary/experimental FTTP network in Ebbsfleet had been dismantled, and they were now using a more standard setup, so the prices would now be taken from the standard price-list. They "did" to learn there, but are undoing it to revert to a standard setup, more easily maintainable in the future]

I suspect, in this case, that the lightweight overhead fibre cables might be appropriate for poles which have been fed underground (so the lightweight cable only goes from the manifold at the top of the pole), and have no power cables strung from them. Equivalent to existing drop cables.

Fibre cables that are distributed along a whole series of poles becomes a different ballgame, with different stresses over a longer distance. Think of these as more "distribution cables" rather than the final drop cable.

And cables that have to run in parallel with power cables, probably with additional robustness requirements, protection requirements (and an extra desire to never have to send a bloke out to maintain them ever again), is a different sport.

In reply to a post by WWWombat:

Deploying FTTP *in the UK* and for *mass residential use* is relatively new, and relatively unproven. We're not talking about the technology here, but the methods of deployment, ...

I wonder if we have a variety of reasons for the delay here. There have certainly been resource problems, even with the ducted installs. I mentioned that BT had identified a subset of pole based properties for which a solution is not yet available for deployment, but they can't / won't say what the common feature is. They have said there are 77 such properties, which is quite a lot, but I would guess less than a third of the total. In fact it may be even less, as the 77 is exchange-wide - some may be in a nearby villages. So clearly they must think they DO have a deployable solution for the rest.

The issue with JUP's (joint user poles, electric and telephony) is that, certainly where the SSE are involved, there is no licence for Openreach to attach new line plant, only to maintain/replace existing plant. This could well be the cause of some of the stumbling blocks.

E.G. Went to fit FTTP, all good to top of pole, but there were a further three carrier poles before the property, 2 were JUP's and the other, hugely inaccessible, not within test date, so would require a hoist (couldn't get there) or the pole testing and/or replacing.

It may well be that some currently copper fed DP's are serviced via a 20 or 50 pair aerial cable, so that the current set up, a twelve ported manifold run to the top of the overhead DP from underground won't suffice. You'd be looking for the manifold tubing to be run overhead to feed subsequent DP's

an aerial fibre deployment uses a small bore tube down which the fibre passes I presume

Yes. From the manifold on the pole, a blown fibre tube is run to the customer splice point on the property. This BFT (let the acronyms commence !) has steel strengtheners in it, like drop wire does, it can also be provided with a single copper pair built in to the tube, so PSTN can be pushed through it also.

Once in situ, the fibre is blown from the DP node direct to the CSP. There is plenty of space within the tubing, it literally rattles as blown through, so should be fairly robust.

http://blog.thinkbroadband.com/2013/04/it-is-surpris...
http://blog.thinkbroadband.com/2012/11/spotters-guid...
http://www.coolwebhome.co.uk/fibre-cornwall/
http://www.coolwebhome.co.uk/fibre-milton-keynes/

The Milton Keynes is ducted stuff, in cornwall is a mixture of FTTC and overhead FTTP in the pictures.

An interesting one is a pole mounted splitter thus feeding other manifolds that are also on poles in the area, that is in Falmouth down some of the cobbled streets (or did I imagine the cobbles)

This would explain the apparent tardiness and vagueness in BT's explanations for the delays - it has probably taken two years (from the time we won our "Race to Infinity" slot) for them to identify and map everything! I think I could probably spot examples here of all the scenarios you mention

An interesting one is a pole mounted splitter

Do you have a photo of that ?

I can imagine a DP being pole mounted, but the splitters are a big beast of a thing to have pole mounted.

Are you saying that twelve tube feeds to the manifolds went from the pole mounted DP straight up and spanned to the required poles , or did they just disappear back UG to go to the others ?

Not so much a race, as an arthritic shuffle ! Were you the poster who lived in Blewbury ?

In reply to a post by Zarjaz:

Do you have a photo of that ?

I can imagine a DP being pole mounted, but the splitters are a big beast of a thing to have pole mounted.

Photos 10 and 11, if you follow the third link of MrSaffron's.

There are no colour-coded splice trays, like seen in photos of full splitters, but there are more trays than normally seen in a DP - 2 styles, a group of 6 and a group of 32.