What determines 'capacity'

I am after a simple explanation of what I know must be a complex topic.

I live in a very rural area where Openreach have put fibre on poles with 'pods'. A very few properties (no more than 5 so far) have been connected FTTP but already many are being refused connection because of 'lack of capacity'

At first this was blamed on lack of cablelinks but now that this has been resolved we are now being told there is a lack of 'splitters' in the network and an Openreach has said the splitters are in the 'pods'. Would adding extra splitters be a straightforward process and is there a limit to the number of times splitters can be 'cascaded' to create extra connections.

It is difficult to understand how the initial design which has capacity for as few as 5 could have been put forward. Can such a design really become future-proof

Are you talking about green pods, or smaller black manifolds?

Both are splitters, but the green pods deal with many more people, each black manifold will serve 8 to 12 premises.

Sounds what may have actually happened is that the FTTP roll-out is partially done, and its waiting on the other fibre manifolds being installed so people can then order and be connected.

The green splitters hold a number of trays for fibres and optical splitters to split the light from incoming fibre onto multiple outgoing fibres and these splitters are normally scaled so that everyone can order, and similar with the manifolds, but you do find scenarios where one manifold is missing - reasons can be many from someone forgot, to pole needs replacing as is unsafe to climb through to teams just got called elsewhere on a higher priority job.

Without an exchange, cabinet or postcode hard to say much more.

Thanks for that. Locally it is mostly the green pods. We are into the Exchange at Skenfrith and the post code is HR2 8RJ. As I said before the mystery is that we are told that we are out of splitters before the number of connections has got beyond half a dozen. I thought a single green pod could serve 30-odd connections on its own

I suspect it just need additional splitter trays and fibre jointing. No biggie.

Still sounds like manifolds or final DP connector box (black box in either case but may be top of pole or in pavement chamber) need installing to me

didn't understand the jargon of 'manifold' or 'DP'. Is there any data in the public domain to show the capabilities of a local network? Or anywhere where one can get an idea of tthe ultimate limits of the network. Or timescales in getting additional capacity?

I hear what you say Witchunt about it being 'no biggie' and yet the rollout locally has come to a complete stop. I have been lucky and am one of about half a dozen who have been connected but the house across the road, though they have placed an order with the same ISP as me, have been told they cannot be connected and have been given no indication of how soon the capacity issue will be resolved

There are othr properties in the village, including a new community centre which is under construction, that have been told that they will not be connected in the Phase 1 implementation engineered by Openreach but will be part of a Phase 2 contract that has been awarded to Gigaclear (across the whole of Herefordshire). However, locally these properties are passed by the same fibre on poles as serve my house. If extra splitters are really no biggie whyy would Openreach simply add the splitters and maximise the use of the infrastructure they have put in.

In reality Gigaclear have said that they would not tap into the existing backbone but implement their own network. This seems to imply to me that they are unlikely to come to this village where some of the potential market is already taken.

So the issue of what the genuine capacity is of what has already been implemented is crucial, but no one will tell me what it is

In reply to a post by BillGarway:

So the issue of what the genuine capacity is of what has already been implemented is crucial, but no one will tell me what it is

Hi Bill
I have PM'd you the name & direct contact no of a person in Openreach's FTTP division(?) who may be able to get to the bottom of this. She was very helpful wrt my FTTP On Demand installation (due to go live tomorrow) and was always able to tell me at what stage my build was at. If she does resolve this then please provide your feedback, and please don't post her name or contact details in public.
Cheers

Like I said, needs new splitter trays in the node and jointing. I suspect that's already being planned , engineering resource is like you to be the limiting factor.

Best of luck for tomorrow. I am happy with mine, I just want others to be able to share the joy. I will follow up your suggwstion