FTTP - Underground / Direct Buried

With all the questions about FTTP one thing I have not seen mentioned (although that maybe because I have a short attention span) is what happens in the street after the street existing chamber (DP?) for connections that are currently directly buried.

Now what I mean here is that when FTTP is deployed I assume that a street is dug up and a communal pipe(s) is added around the street (like Virgin Media did all those years ago).

However, what happens where there is a need to tee off to each property. Is a mini chamber constructed at the property boundary (similar to the VM toby) or is the main run of pipe simply buried and then when an FTTP connection is ordered someone comes and digs another hole in the pavement and tees off from there, running conduit down to the external outer edge of the house?

EIther new duct to each house, or overhead fibre drops are used.

No mini chamber at edge of property, the fibre is run from the CBT/manifold which is usually (but not always the DP).

What will happen exactly will of course vary from street to street and this is why some properties in areas may miss out, or be left for a later roll-out.

VM only have the tee off at each property because not everyone will take the service, so no point wiring every property up to the front door. With underground telephone cable, then everyone already has cable up to and into each property which for many is already in under ground ducting (not always but usually). When the fibre is installed a fibre glass rod is used typically from the nearest distribution point and pushed through the existing ducting where it pops out at the side of the house somewhere, this can be used to pull rope through which in turn is used to pull the fibre through, so it sits along side the existing telephone cable.

So the existing underground ducting is used. This process would be the same if you needed more telephone lines than there were pairs in your existing cable, they would just pull through some more telephone cable.

When I had FTTP on Demand installed and we are all underground, there was no need for any new ducting or new manholes, all the existing infrastructure was used, and now it is completed there is no way anyone could tell I had FTTP. Even the fibre into the house is hidden completely behind the same cover as the telephone cable, not a single bit of fibre cable is visible outside. Remarkable really when the house is 30 years old and some of route the fibre took was along pavements built in the 70s.

Yes but the question was specifically about properties currently served by *direct buried* cables. This is when there is no duct, but armoured copper cable dug straight into a trench.

They erect telegraph poles for the final drop in some areas.
They micro trench down the pavement in some areas.
They have indeed used Toby's in areas but it's not very common (or didn't used to be).

It depends on the layout in your particular area but they have various methods that can be used as the cost/work involved can vary considerably between areas.

They continue to trial and implement new rollout methods so what they use now might change by the time your area gets started.

For the final run from CBT to premises, where the existing copper feed is direct in ground, this should be picked up when ordered ... and arrangements made to provide the required duct.

In reply to a post by j0hn83:

They erect telegraph poles for the final drop in some areas.
They micro trench down the pavement in some areas.
They have indeed used Toby's in areas but it's not very common (or didn't used to be).

They're using narrow trenching and Tobys where new underground infrastructure is required to serve properties where duct either doesn't exist or isn't usable. Should be build pre-emptively as part of the enabling of an area for FTTP now.

Obviously might be different where this was missed or left until later. Certainly in Fibre First areas narrow trenching and Tobys are how they roll.

I'm not aware of any case where they or anyone else in the UK have used microtrenching for anything other than getting fibre to a locale.

Ah sorry, missed that completely.

Is the poster sure the telephone cable is directly buried? They initially thought my telephone wire was direct in the ground as it came up at the side of house from the dirt. The surveyor had to remove a few bricks from the paving that went up against the house to check and then found the ducting stopped about 20cm short of the house, giving an initial appearance of being direct in the ground.

Whoops, I didn't see your response to me, how rude of me, hand slapped.

Although my question was more about the generic approach to direct buried copper to fibre transition it was actually prompted by me looking at my own estate.

I don't actually know if I have direct buried or an underground feed. All the houses on the street have BT Capping 101 running to the "porch". Mine has been removed as the porch is now part of the inside of the house. Due to this I couldn't explore when renovating to see if there was conduit (as even if there was it's been long time concreted over by previous owners).

I did once check with council but the only way get these plans is to go to the library and make an appointment for them to get the microfiche's out. At some point (as I am nosy lol I will probably go and have a look).

The estate was a 1990's Beazer Homes estate (later Persimmon's) if that'd make any difference to how the build would have been constructed.

Edited by gary333 (Tue 07-Jul-20 13:18:02)