In reply to a post by MrSaffron:

Each fibre cabinet will only serve one PCP

Do PCP's ever get linked together or are they Star connected from the exchange?

No, its not practice to wire two PCPs together. However the E-side cable from the exchange to the more distant PCP might well pass through the ducting that goes under/past-ish the closer PCP.

FTTC cabs can be as far away as 100m, but BT really prefer them to be within 50m.

In the deployments I have seen, the cables between PCP and FTTC cabinet tend to have new ducting laid between the FTTC cabinet and the footway chamber just in front of the PCP. I suspect that BT would prefer not to put the tie cables into existing ducts, but there are plenty of cabs that I haven't seen ... so this impression might be wrong.

Do PCP's ever get linked together or are they Star connected from the exchange?

Sometimes a circuit might have two PCP's in its routing.

'Star connected' doesn't quite cover it, more akin to tree branches.

Nope. Or was he just giving an example of a hidden FTTC cabinet?

The number isn't visible on the PCP down the street that resides next to the FTTC cabinet.

What cab number off of which exchange does the checker you linked to earlier say you are connected too ?

Tell the forum, and someone on here will kindly look it up for you.

I think we need to think about how cables get added over time, too.

In the fifties, a 1000-pair cable might have run out of the exchange, and fed into a tree of a few PCPs. A decade later, capacity might have been running low, and a 500-pair cable needs to be added, with a couple of hundred extra pairs run into two or three of the PCPs.

What I've seen of a snapshot of E-side records nowadays suggests that the feed into a PCP has grown over time, with a couple of hundred pairs taken out of one (larger) E-side cable, plus a couple of hundred out of another, plus a hundred out of a third. With the remainder of the E-sides continuing onwards.

Then add on the complication that each of these groupings is made of different lengths of 0.32mm copper, 0.4mm copper and 0.5mm copper.

In reply to a post by Zarjaz:

The number isn't visible on the PCP down the street that resides next to the FTTC cabinet.

What cab number off of which exchange does the checker you linked to earlier say you are connected too ?

Tell the forum, and someone on here will kindly look it up for you.

I'm on the THAD exchange and the cab number given by the various checkers is 76 and I know that to be the PCP that BTOR have worked on in regards to my line in the past.

I'm on the THAD exchange and the cab number given by the various checkers is 76

Aha, so it's in Thameswey district somewhere, though not an exchange code I'm familiar with.

In reply to a post by Zarjaz:

I'm on the THAD exchange and the cab number given by the various checkers is 76

Aha, so it's in Thameswey district somewhere, though not an exchange code I'm familiar with.

I'm not familiar with that district either - this is in hampshire.

Cab 76 in Aldershot.

Since the PCP only has 170 odd lines, you are going to be looking for a small DSAM - unlikely to be the one outside the job centre assuming the PCP next to that is active

How old are the pictures on Google Maps? - https://www.google.co.uk/maps/place/14C+Arthur+St,+A...

Edited by gt94sss2 (Wed 08-Jun-16 23:04:54)