FoD2 Architecture

A little more detail on the architecture being used to deliver FoD2, showing totally different architecture from the fibre DP onwards

It can be seen within a BT presentation (to NICC, Nov 2015):
http://www.niccstandards.org.uk/meetings/2015derknos...
Page 8 seems to hold new information On FoD2, including the ways it make deployment quicker and cheaper.

Of note:
BFT replaced by SST.
No splice tray at the home
No blowing

Aims at 2 or 3 jobs per day instead of 1.

As I understand it, G.Fast is fibre to the G.Fast unit then DSL to the home down the telephone wires. This presentation seems to pay lip service to G.Fast but is talking about fibre to the home - is that correct?

Is that kid pulling the fibre into the home? How many kids will they need?

More or less the big poster I featured in September http://blog.thinkbroadband.com/2015/09/g-fast-and-fo...

Interesting - I thought the whole point of BFT (Blown fibre Tubing) was to avoid any stress on the fibre, ie, the tube is manhandled and pulled (with high amounts of force and some stretch) into the ducts, multiple lengths of tube can be joined together with plumbing joints (even made by a plumbing fittings company - John Guest). Then the fibre bundle can be blown through the whole length. Can' see using ready made cable is going to lead to any improvement in productivity, separate lengths will need splicing plus risk of finding the cable has failed with snapped fibres after pulling in long lengths.

B4RN use blown fibre - if a bunch of amateurs can do it just proves how incompetent BT/Openreach are.

Whichever way they try to install their main issue is going to be areas with no ducts (most pre 1990 housing estates).

Post deleted by Ribble

In reply to a post by AL66:

B4RN use blown fibre - if a bunch of amateurs can do it just proves how incompetent BT/Openreach are.

Beyond that BT invented the process of blowing fibre, and have been using it for all their fibre install needs for many years, indeed.

In reply to a post by BatBoy:

As I understand it, G.Fast is fibre to the G.Fast unit then DSL to the home down the telephone wires. This presentation seems to pay lip service to G.Fast but is talking about fibre to the home - is that correct?

Right now, BT seem to have one project they term NGA2, and it encompasses both G.fast as well as FoD2. Almost every presentation done by BT includes both aspects together, with varying degrees of emphasis - in this case, a little more on FoD2.

As it happens, the meeting had another presentation from BT, this time focussing on G.fast:
http://www.niccstandards.org.uk/meetings/2015kevinfo...

There was a further presentation on the updates to NICC for DSL in 2015, and the promise that the ANFP will be updated to account for G.fast by February 2016:

http://www.niccstandards.org.uk/meetings/2015kevinfo...

In terms of trialling NGA2, the Gosforth trial only includes G.Fast, but the Huntingdon trial includes both: Some areas are G.fast only, some (business) are FoD2 only, and some are both.

Is that kid pulling the fibre into the home? How many kids will they need?

Goat-loads?

In reply to a post by MrSaffron:

More or less the big poster I featured in September http://blog.thinkbroadband.com/2015/09/g-fast-and-fo...

Ah yes - the poster with one of the tantalising detail hidden by the splitter.

As an architecture, it looks the same, but the details add a lot. In particular seeing the difference in size between the BFT tubing and the SST cable.

One of the earliest presentations on FoD2 mentioned that SST was push/pull capable, and helped enormously in cases where there were light duct blockages - because the SST fibre could be successfully forced through, whereas the BFT would require a digging team.

Seeing this presentation helps put it in perspective.

In reply to a post by AL66:

Interesting - I thought the whole point of BFT (Blown fibre Tubing) was to avoid any stress on the fibre, ie, the tube is manhandled and pulled (with high amounts of force and some stretch) into the ducts,

It seems that BFT tubing poses more of a problem - either because it is much larger, and suffers where ducts are congested, or because it can't cope with lightly blocked/silted ducts.

This was mentioned in a previous presentation on NGA2, where BFT had the disadvantage of requiring digging teams to turn out to unblock ducts more regularly.

One of the points with the SST fibre was the dual steel strength members that allow for the push/pull technique to be used - and we can see the numbers here.

At least, that's the theory. The trial will tell us (well, BT) whether it works out better in practice.

In reply to a post by AL66:

B4RN use blown fibre - if a bunch of amateurs can do it just proves how incompetent BT/Openreach are.

B4RN uses blowing in a number of ways, but they, of course, are blowing fibre down a virgin duct that they just installed. Little need for dealing with duct blockages to get either their outer duct into place or the cable blown into it. Even with virgin duct, they've had to deal with rodent issues.

BT's bigger problem isn't blowing fibre down BFT tube (except for the overhead of setting up the blower for an individual customer), but is about getting the empty tubing into place.

In reply to a post by AL66:

Can' see using ready made cable is going to lead to any improvement in productivity, separate lengths will need splicing plus risk of finding the cable has failed with snapped fibres after pulling in long lengths.

Looking at the pole-mounted Corning hardware, with the pre-terminated cable attached, it appears to be orderable with different lengths of fibre: 50m, 100m, 150m and 200m.

As the fibre only has to go back to a DP or a splitter, shared amongst 20-120 homes, it isn't likely to need to be any longer.

Snapped cable is a different thing - but presumably the design of the cable is meant to cope with this. This is the kind of stuff they are using:
http://catalog.corning.com/opcomm/en-US/catalog/Prod...

Whichever way they try to install their main issue is going to be areas with no ducts (most pre 1990 housing estates).

Certainly the unducted underground properties are the headache. But are you referring to the final lead-in to the home being unducted, or the main street infrastructure (between chambers)?

I've got something that tells us a split of the wiring types in the UK. I'll dig it out...

Hmm, maybe I'm missing something but I still can't quite understand how this ready made cable is going to help except maybe for the final drop to individual properties, even then I would have thought sticking with splicing instead of connectors would be more reliable long term (as well as less attenuation).

For the bigger cables using SST surely you are going to need to splice all those fibres each time you join lengths of cable?? It there's an issue with the BFT maybe fitting that with strength members too would enable more forceful methods to get it through the ducts?

Pre 1990 estates - was it not common practice for all cables (lead ins and under pavements, etc) back to PCP to be direct buried? My own house built early '60's, everything is direct buried even though there are small 'GPO' concrete covers in the pavement, each share between two houses - asked an engineer when he came for a fault, no duct anywhere.