In reply to a post by DarkKobra1977:

Hi guys, I have a question.

I was wondering, can 1 Fibre cabinet cater for 2 normal cabinets?

The reason I was asking is that I'm on the Runcorn Main exchange and by my house we have a bus way. On one side of the bus way (2 lanes) there is a Fibre cabinet by Cabinet 25, but on the other side, there is another cabinet (Cabinet 26) with no Fibre cabinet by it. The distance between Cabinet 25 and Cabinet 26 are literally about 10 to 20 meters away from each other.

I'm on Cabinet 26 and on the checkers (BT Wholesale and Samknows.com), it is stating that it will be around May 31st when FTTC may be available in my area, yet there is no VDSL cabinet next to it, only next to Cabinet 25.

Any information or explanation would be greatly appreciated!!!

I seriously don't see why it wouldn't be possible. From what I understand they it's copper lines from the premises to the PCP cabinet, and then they take a line from there to the VDSL box. Providing there is spare capacity and appropriate trunking is in place, I can't see why two cabs can't share one VDSL cab.

Having said that, we have a similar setup near here, two cabs (11 and 12 on CMSPR), a few metres apart, one VDSL cab installed (cab 12 - not yet activated), but there is another (cab 11) with planning permission for an additional VDSL cab which has not yet been installed yet. Cab 5 elsewhere on CMSPR also has planning permission, looks like that will be installed start of December. No news yet on 11, guess they're waiting to see if they can do Cab 13 yet

Could swing either way.

May is long enough away that the cabinet may appear and be connected up with time to spare.

In reply to a post by Ribble:

I was wondering, can 1 Fibre cabinet cater for 2 normal cabinets?

No, at least not at present. In the future, maybe.

Why is this though? It's only a case of taking a lead from the PCP to the fibre cab and the fibre cab takes the data off? When Fibre can be fed from another Exchange, it's kind of surprising to hear this?

The fibre cabs usually only have capacity for around 20% take-up - so running two lots of old cabs from one fibre cab makes that ratio worse.

Where take-up is high (i.e fibre cab full) they do add new cabinets, but there can be a period when a cabinet is full.

Each FTTC cab is applied a power setting according to the CAL value of the associated copper PCP to reduce the effect of crosstalk on other services running through the PCP. It's quite likely that 2 PCPs , even in close proximity will have different CALs due to different E side lengths and cable types. Therefore 2 different power settings maybe required on the same FTTC cabinet. That may not be possible , or that Openreach haven't come up with a solution to achieve it.

In reply to a post by Ribble:

Each FTTC cab is applied a power setting according to the CAL value of the associated copper PCP to reduce the effect of crosstalk on other services running through the PCP. It's quite likely that 2 PCPs , even in close proximity will have different CALs due to different E side lengths and cable types. Therefore 2 different power settings maybe required on the same FTTC cabinet. That may not be possible , or that Openreach haven't come up with a solution to achieve it.

Thanks for that. So there are technical issues why it's not possible which goes far beyond location of said cab or take up. Im presuming it would be possible to connect two PCP's to one FTTC cab if CALs, Crosstalk and Capacity weren't an issue?

Oh dear I bet you are not happy. I'm sure you'll cope on Virgin 120 for the time being - they've relaxed the traffic management now too.

Our cabs haven't needed a wayleave because they are on grass verges next to public highways.

My cab is in some bushes on a grass verge. No properties near it, no land for the cables to cross, right next to an existing cab.

That cab you've put a photo up of will need groundworks which will effect the tennants living next to it.

Wouldn't shock me if they decided to move it away from that house.

I had email BT Openreach they are more than welcome to install FTTC on my property wall as my house wall is on the main road, which it will be perfect for Openreach to put FTTC box there instead of my old cabinet 8 to the owner of the property house (who might refused wayleave premission)

Wolvesmad, I think u are probably right, openreach might move that cabinet 8 away from it and put that at the end of the main road nearby my property house. Why not BT do this way and forget wayleave premisson. They shouldn't put fibre cable under the public footpath two months ago if the wayleave rejected it.

In even better news concrete plinth and base of cabinet are in place.

Still a bit of work for me to do behind the scenes but optimistic.

They blast the fibre down the ducting in preperation for the cab to go in. If they have collapsed ducts etc, this would halt the cabinet install so they put the cable in first.

They don't need planning permission for that either.

Edited by wolvesmad (Fri 08-Nov-13 12:44:07)