Curious Fibre run...

I've been looking at roadworks.org following the progress of Openreach's contractors blow the fibre which started last Thursday (28/05). The FTTC DSLAM is already in place which happened a week before that (22/05).

What i'm finding curious at the moment that they are not starting the fibre from my exchange that i'm about 4 miles a way from (Martock, WWMART) but they seem to have started at closest and last Fibre Cabinet which is part of the Yeovil (WWYEOV) exchange in the other direction and live and from what i can see they are doing a cable run from there through my village to the Martock Exchange and i assume connecting the FTTC's along the way.
The reference numbers for roadworks.org for these cable runs end IBL10HAL1 all the way to IBL10HAL19 which is roughly where the Martock Exchange is.

Currently all the various checkers say "Exploring Solutions" or "under review" and at this stage i'm not so bothered about that progress is better than nothing
I'm not so bothered about why i'm on that exchange or this cab as there's no changing that really but curious perhaps from an infrastructure and logistics side.

My limited understanding of these things is that most exchanges (at least mine and the Yeovil one) are already fibre linked together which i believe is the 21CN status being enabled but maybe that's not the case?

Perhaps my question can't be answered unless BT/Openreach tell me which is highly unlikely even if i did ask. And there's no point in asking the contractors as they are just doing a job from point A to B.

If anyone can shed some light though that would be awesome!

Thanks in advance

Edited by deleted (Sun 31-May-15 07:50:21)

21cn is a bt wholesale asset.

Openreach often runs fibre from a larger exchange to cabs on smaller exchanges, e.g. Falmouth is the gea handover for 8 exchanges

Thanks MrSaffron!

interesting so although my PCP is connected to a different exchange (wwmart) and from the remediation work done after putting in the NGA (Huawei 288) it seems to at least link them together it could still be that at least our NGA could be running from the last NGA on the larger exchange (wwyeov)?

Do you know if there are benefits for doing this? Is it a cost decision or an infrastructure decision?
I suppose in terms of line speed from my house to the cab it won't make much difference as i'm still 850mtrs'ish from the NGA anyway.

I almost started thinking they might be doing FTTP as the cable run will be going right outside my house

You need to think very long term.......as in decades.
Bypassing the smaller local exchanges by running fibre from larger nearby ones has a long term aim.

So:
Eventually you get the cabinets to handle voice calls as well.
Then move everyone over to FTTC regardless and switch off the exchange ADSL(2) equipment.

So you now have a group of regional mega-exchanges feeding umpteen hundred (if not sometime further off thousands+) cabinets.

At this point the local exchange plus all the E-side cabling from them to each local cabinet is redundant and can be closed down. The exchange building or rather the land in many cases is very valuable and can easily be sold off - for housing.

I suggest that the Yeovil Exchange may have sufficient space to accommodate all of the VDSL/Fibre equipment for that larger catchment area, thus reducing the travelling required etc for its maintenance etc.

I also suspect that it does reduce the amount of roadworks etc involved, to cover such areas - back to the Network Analysis programs I wrote many years ago!


So far, I have not seen any reasonable description of what has to be added at an exchange, to accommodate such VDSL/Fibre upgrades, apart from the assumption that the fibre must go "somewhere" and onwards.

Perhaps someone with "inside knowledge" would oblige.

In reply to a post by eckiedoo:

I suggest that the Yeovil Exchange may have sufficient space to accommodate all of the VDSL/Fibre equipment for that larger catchment area, thus reducing the travelling required etc for its maintenance etc.

I also suspect that it does reduce the amount of roadworks etc involved, to cover such areas - back to the Network Analysis programs I wrote many years ago!


So far, I have not seen any reasonable description of what has to be added at an exchange, to accommodate such VDSL/Fibre upgrades, apart from the assumption that the fibre must go "somewhere" and onwards.

Perhaps someone with "inside knowledge" would oblige.

I don't work exactly in that job but obviously from what I've seen the headends get a very tall box that all of the fibre (ultimately from the cabinets) feeds into from the top. Though I've only ever seen the ECI headend equipment, never the Huawei version.

The ECI version pretty much looks like a double width ADSL2 DSLAM (roughly same height). You can't really see much of the innards.

MrSaffron-didnt't you go on a visit to an exchange with a headend once where you were shown all of this stuff though?

http://www.coolwebhome.co.uk/fibre-cornwall/

Pages 6 and 7 of the pictures show Falmouth headend

It will make no difference to the speeds you get.

Benefits are that in time, some exchange buildings will be abandoned, but that is many years away, but is a reflection that openreach believes their GEA fibre network will have a long life, hence its support for future FTTP expansion even in areas where just VDSL2 is deployed now.

Edited by MrSaffron (Sun 31-May-15 10:37:17)

And the copper recovery - "little gold-mines".


Also, I wonder if the redundant ducts may have a residual value, such as for electricty supplies, whether new or providing a more protected environment thinking of the recent storms and associated damage?

Edited by deleted (Sun 31-May-15 13:16:12)

Thanks, Icaras.

Edited by deleted (Sun 31-May-15 13:16:45)