In reply to a post by iand:

Do I see a time when the kids will swap the red trays for the others, confusing everyone adding extra more services?

If they try withdrawing an occupied tray from the stack, I'd expect them to break the fibres and cause all manner of alarms to go off. If they pull an unoccupied tray from the stack, it's just a damaged tray that is probably easy to replace.

From my understanding of how it all goes together, it's quite a disassembly job to get inside a fibre manifold, especially if it's in an underground chamber. You've got to lift the chamber lid (which isn't easy without the right tools), lift the framework on which the manifold is mounted, unscrew the manifold cover and open the strap that retains the trays. The chamber is probably full of mud and possibly full of water - I just don't see the motivation to interfere.

Few kids will see any sort of devilment in messing with the manifolds - there's far more immediate ways to get your kicks whilst causing criminal damage. There's no money to be made, as there's no metallic cable to steal. Most won't understand how the network goes together anyway. Few will want to risk the ire of their friends when they are unable to play the latest Xbox / PlayStation game online because some twit broke the broadband network.


There's plenty of Virgin Media nodes around here with loose and unlocked covers. I've never seen the kids interfering with them, even though it would be easy to lift off the lid, unscrew all the coaxial cables from the tap plates, pull all the twisted pairs from the Krone blocks and pull off all the labels so it's hard to put it all back together again. The kids probably care far too much about being able to watch television (this area has poor sight lines to the south, meaning satellite often won't work) and cable modems (ntl:, as it was then, got here long before any DSL) to want to interfere.

One of these was done to serve an Asda store opening nearby. There is an aggregation node in there.

I'm unsure if this infrastructure can also be used for NGA - any ideas?

Description:
Build 2 concrete chamber 2315mm x 737mm x 1565mm deep in Footway,Install 30m of 6 poly ducts in Footway

"You've got to lift the chamber lid (which isn't easy without the right tools)"

Nope its very easy to do without the right tools but i am not saying how on here

Not sure kids would like it just look at the pic Mr Saffron posted and see the slugs on the wall first thing i do is kill them all.

In reply to a post by btbert:

"You've got to lift the chamber lid (which isn't easy without the right tools)"

Nope its very easy to do without the right tools but i am not saying how on here

I was thinking about the weight rather than anything else. I know how I'd go about attempting to lift the lid without proper tools, but I'm not about to try it, as the chambers are not my property and I have no reason to access them.

I fully endorse your decision not to post any information here. This is the sort of engineer trick that should not be posted publicly - the last thing any of us want is encouraging destruction of BT property.


Is any of the fibre system linked up to RABIT, or is that for copper cables only?


Meanwhile, if you want to come and lift the stuck manhole lid covering the foul water branch on my driveway, you'd be most welcome!

Rabbit is for copper only

In reply to a post by btbert:

Nope its very easy to do without the right tools but i am not saying how on here

I saw what damage was done when some numpties did this to steal a load of copper. Took an entire village out for 5 days - and they came back and nicked it again within a couple of days !
OR tried their best to secure the chamber, but the way it had been opened made it far to easy to remove the seals.
The third time these guys tried to nick the copper they were surrounded by angry villagers and chased off, leaving their tools and van behind! The Police didn't approve of the methods, but got some nice evidence from the van.