Good works map link. Quite a few showing in Hackney. Wonder if the works description is somewhat generic - otherwise there’s a good few cabinets going in proximity.

Spotted today: fibre units have appeared from some microducts on poles. The few I could see were all Emtelle MHT2185 12-fibre type.

So, either they're only lighting up 12 ports per pole-top box, OR there are pole-top splitters and they're blowing 12 fibres to allow plenty of room for expansion. I suspect the latter.

There is fan noise from the local cabinet, which is also a good sign.

In reply to a post by ft247:

Spotted today: fibre units have appeared from some microducts on poles. The few I could see were all Emtelle MHT2185 12-fibre type.

So, either they're only lighting up 12 ports per pole-top box, OR there are pole-top splitters and they're blowing 12 fibres to allow plenty of room for expansion. I suspect the latter.

There is fan noise from the local cabinet, which is also a good sign.

How many premises is each pole-top box serving? Would they go much beyond 12 per pole?

In reply to a post by Pheasant:

How many premises is each pole-top box serving? Would they go much beyond 12 per pole?

Yes - from a very small sample size (two streets) around 50% of poles have two boxes.

Counting premises passed per pole is complicated in these SDU streets, some have been subdivided into maisonettes/flats and some have not. Do you count premises as exist now or potential future premises? Or how many premises there were when the poles were first installed?

Going by current premises, it feels like there is a number somewhere around 25 at which point a second box is installed.

I have no way of knowing whether all the boxes are configured identically. There's an argument for keeping the architecture (split ratios/hierarchy) consistent, it keeps the splice count way down. The counter-argument is that it can lead to providing (say) 32 ports to a pole serving 25 premises, which given that take-up is never 100% would lead to inefficient use of of OLT ports.

I'd say that's why Openreach have gone for the CBT architecture: no splicing at the pole (saves labour) and you end up with a bunch of fibres at a splitter node where 1:32 splits can be much more efficiently utilised.

However some poles have 3 OR CBTs on them and hence three cables running down the pole, all PIA chargeable items. I'm sure someone at CF has done the sums. Also, I'd wager the HellermanTyton pole enclosures are cheaper than Corning Optisheath CBTs, plus there is no vendor lock-in on drop cables.

Coming up to my one year with my leased line with Vaioni I decided to email Community Fibre last week to see are they coming to my area. I got a reply back within a couple of days asking could they come around to see my place. The sales rep cane around, said he talked to the network team and they would be interested. We had a chat on pricing and I signed a contract last Friday. They called me yesterday saying they'd like to do a site survey today. The guy came around, took some pics and said they would also have to do an overhead PIA solution too. He's going to put together a plan in the coming days and they will send it to me. The install time he said is about a month but, having experienced the joys of getting a leased line in last year, I'll take that with a pinch of salt. I've let my neighbours know about it as one only has VDSL and the other has Virgin.

In reply to a post by roundrobin:

I signed a contract last Friday.

Is your service going to be XGS-PON or a point to point leased line type circuit? I didn't think they were in the latter market.

How far are you away from their current coverage area?

I have a feeling from how the guy today described it was that it's more XGS-PON. I should know more in the coming days. I'm about 300m away apparently so I may have to do some scouting to find out more.

In reply to a post by Pheasant:

How many premises is each pole-top box serving? Would they go much beyond 12 per pole?

I've come across a few groups of poles in a completed area where there's one microduct up the first pole, which has CF pole-top boxes (at least one, I can't remember if the first pole ever has two). There is then a length of the same microduct spanning to another pole, which has a CF pole-top box but no CF microduct descending that pole, so essentially more than one pole is being fed from a single microduct.

It's of course possible that they've blown a 24-fibre unit in these cases and there are no splitters in the pole-top boxes, but that strikes me as a really labour-intensive way to do it and leaves little room for expansion.

Things got quiet in my area for a few weeks, but the pace has picked up again. Multiple teams are clearing duct blockages this week. Openreach have also moved in with their rollout, in some cases I'm seeing street works permits applied for by both in the same locations. I presume whoever gets there second is pleasantly surprised when the duct has already been cleared.

As well as the 7-way 5/3.5mm MHT175 type microduct bundle that forms most of the underground distribution network to poles. I've seen some 12/8 thickwall microduct in use with mini cable of (very approximately) 6.5mm diameter. I assume this carries unsplit ports from OLTs deeper into the network prior to splitting/further distribution in the 7-way bundles.

I've come across a few groups of poles in a completed area where there's one microduct up the first pole, which has CF pole-top boxes (at least one, I can't remember if the first pole ever has two). There is then a length of the same microduct spanning to another pole, which has a CF pole-top box but no CF microduct descending that pole, so essentially more than one pole is being fed from a single microduct.

It's of course possible that they've blown a 24-fibre unit in these cases and there are no splitters in the pole-top boxes, but that strikes me as a really labour-intensive way to do it and leaves little room for expansion.

Some poles in the new rollout area are being spanned from another. One is a carrier pole, but most aren't.

My previous post is inaccurate - it seems that the cable being used to span between poles is not the all-black microduct, but a 48F ULW overhead cable, black with yellow stripe.

It remains to be seen whether the first 'base' pole will only have 12 or 24 fibres blown up a microduct in the first instance, or whether 48F cable will be used.

Interesting. I went for a walk yesterday and so many poles around the area now have looped up cabling on them (with yellow tape to keep them looped). What I did notice is that no cable has the yellow stripe on them unlike with Openreach. It's just a pure black cable. Do you think it's Community Fibre as they said they are planning to launch in the area? Nothing on their site when you put in postcodes.