Aluminium v copper

Does anyone have any specific information on the xDSL performance of aluminium compared to copper? I'm particular curious about how it will impact FTTC.

It will be even worse when handling VDSL2

In reply to a post by MrSaffron:

It will be even worse when handling VDSL2

You mean lag further behind? Yes, I can see that since it uses higher frequencies. How would you classify FTTC for the typical aluminium user, then? Pointless? A bit better? A lot better? Significant improvement?

I'm wondering because I've seen a few comments recently from people who seem to think that FTTC is an irrelevance for those on aluminium lines and that seems a very negative view to me.

At the very worst it would at least remove the E side amount of wiring, so give an improvement at least.

Not seen enough actual lines to make a real comment, beyond the HF performance issue.

Irrelevant no - an improvement, but not as big as the copper counterparts.

OK, to give some idea .......
850m 0.5 copper, got 40m sync.
710m 0.5 ali, got 17m sync.

how do you even know you are on copper or alu?

You don't. Some lines will have a mix, some none, some all the way.

I have worked on 700M of well maintained ali with cable duct share in an amateur hams house - got full 40/10 - then off patch got 15meg on 200M of ali. The condition of the line is very important, while the minimum speed is 15M and BT use 2week trained unskilled engineers to install this stuff you will end up with such huge variances.
If you do receive poor speeds raise a boost fault (if BT) and hope they send you a proper engineer.

In reply to a post by Andrue:

I'm wondering because I've seen a few comments recently from people who seem to think that FTTC is an irrelevance for those on aluminium lines and that seems a very negative view to me.

A lot of Basingstoke is on Ali, but the FTTC forum is full of Basingstoke people praising FTTC (where fitted) or annoyed it not yet in their area. Colleagues at work on ADSL2+ in Bstoke find they're getting significantly less than expected, so FTTC is worthwhile.

To be honest two weeks of training for fitting a service specific faceplate is plenty of time.

Yes but most of this time will be spent on health and safety and using taskforce on the laptop.And i bet most of them dont know what " T ing off " or star wiring off a bt66 or dropwire is let alone sorting it out.

Some do just put a nte5 with the ss face plate on it werever the end user wants it and its job done !

D-side was swapped out also, but to no avail.

BT use 2week trained unskilled engineers to install this stuff you will end up with such huge variances.

Oh yeah, that'll be it. I had forgotten I'd only been on three weeks !

Where they seem to need most help is counting the pairs in the cab. [sad]

Cu Vs Al...

I rarely see mention of the wire gauge in the argument, how does .4cu compare to .5al in a long e-side stretch?...

No idea, would be looking for data on google

I read the original research on aluminium v copper access network cabling from the boffins in the fifties.

The conclusion was that aluminium .8mm was a suitable replacement for .5 copper.

The old .8 ali cables are beautifully made, have equivalent transmission and are very resilient.

The boffins decided that the large diameter of the .8 ali cable meant it was best to bury UG DPs alongside ducting on the housing estates rather than use up duct space.

By the time of the last deployment of aluminium esides in the early eighties they had forgotten about the research and cut back to .32

I remember the contempt my old T1 had when we were winching it in and he swore it was much smaller diameter at the winch end than the drum end.

My old be line saw an increase in speed from 11meg to 24meg once I had swapped from .32 ali to .63 copper esides.

Ali is a gift that keeps on giving. You can't machine joint it and you can't hand crank it and so it is very profitable to jointers booking on breakdowns

I digress, you're right, the poundage of the wire is what is important. Which is prolly why I've never seen an ali junction cable, they wouldn't fit in a duct.

Edited by deleted (Wed 12-Oct-11 21:30:18)

Are the cables just Aluminium or CCA ?

I've never seen copper coated aluminium wire in the network.

Also, doesn't ali corrode much faster than copper?

What type of cable would be used on a 5 year old estate (new D-sides) & PCP.

ali corrodes awful. copper doesnt - just bad joints. on the very best ali joints i have noticed the insulation peels off very easily, also ali doesnt like being bent as much. Once an ali joint gets wet it is finished, unless there is enough slack to cut back 60cm (rare) and the engineer is allocated enough time to repair (never), then a simple recrimp will result in unintentional hr dis faults, with almost every subsequent repair or interventiin in the joint knocking other lines off.
performace wise over 3km of line on my local cab a change from 100% ali run to 60% ali run gives an extra 2meg on adsl 2.
the rule of thumb when taking measurements on ali was to add 20% onto the result - i.e. a line measures 100M for copper line tester is actually only 80M long if made of ali.

if your estate is 5 years old you d side cable should be .5 copper in duct , so good news.

As for you e side who knows !

Cool story bro!

my question is how did you do what seems to be the impossible for a normal customer?

Get your cabling upgraded to higher quality,

In reply to a post by Chrysalis:

my question is how did you do what seems to be the impossible for a normal customer?

Get your cabling upgraded to higher quality,

DIY

this can be done on a BB boost job.

Not impossible, but would say rare.

BT does more repair/uplift work than I think many would believe, the reason it goes unnoticed is the vast majority don't know anything about their broadband quality, or were confused by what their ISP told them,