In reply to a post by think26872:

I never thought they may only connect up select poles and then piggy back off another pole. Is this a standard way of doing things?

Yes, quite common.

350m is the max ‘off the shelf’ CBT to CSP reel. I hear even longer on special order

In reply to a post by candlerb:

In reply to a post by think26872:

I never thought they may only connect up select poles and then piggy back off another pole. Is this a standard way of doing things?

Yes, quite common.

Yes, and with copper too …

Interesting, I wasn't aware there was an issue with the length of cable. I just assumed it would need to be tensioned to keep it in line.

Over a certain length the weight and sag of the span puts excessive strain on the cable, especially where held by the clamps

In reply to a post by Zarjaz:

Over a certain length the weight and sag of the span puts excessive strain on the cable, especially where held by the clamps

Thanks Zarjaz, will be interesting to see how they handle it tomorrow.

As already mentioned quite common. In my case the underground duct runs from cabinet to every pole except te last one - which serves just two houses including mine.

It's also quite common around here (S London) to span the CBT tails to another pole rather than unblocking a duct. A bit messy if you ask me, but I'm sure there are many who appreciate the faster deployment.

My area has both Openreach and Community Fibre equipment on poles - where CF do it, they generally use either 48f cable or a drop tube with a 12f unit, which isn't too noticeable.

Openreach often span 3x COF250 CBT tails across a similar route, which looks far worse to me. At least my end of the street was done the old-fashioned way by excavating to unblock ducts.

In reply to a post by think26872:

>Will also chat with the OpenReach engineer (assuming he turns
>up as planned) and ask him about it.

That would be interesting if the opportunity arises but don't do anything that may put the engineer off helping you get connected.

All installed this morning, took under an hour in the end.

They didn't really know much about the cable length issues to be honest.
They were part of the Kelly Group though, not OpenReach themselves.

I've seen a lot of this in our area, also they sometimes run the 36F cables they use extensively to link to the Ag nodes & also between splitter nodes overhead due to duct blockages and congestion. The most I've seen between poles is three of these.

Looking at the state of some of the ducts I don't blame them, particularly ducts in country lanes as they get full of all sorts of muck and can often be quite congested. Around here they did attempt to clear some of the ducts in the roads but gave up due to the number of blockages and went overhead instead for short sections.

My favourite example of this was a section they went overhead a ~100m section instead of using the ducts because someone has extended their paved drive out onto the pavement and over an Openreach chamber cover. If it were my decision I'd have just broken up the paving over the cover!

Rules for Altnets, from CP08 (overhead engineering specs):

68m for a standard span
75m absolute max span over a road (but needs to be a minimum of 6.5m instead of 5.9)
85m absolute max where not crossing a road