Help The Colonies

G'Day!

Australia's probable new government wants to stop our nationwide FTTH rollout and copy the UK's FTTC. Awesome

The comparative costs are $37bn vs $30bn.

I'm a journalist whose been trying to establish if there's anything good about doing this. If you've any thoughts on anything please let me know. But if you could help with the following questions that would be great:-

1) We have big problems with corroded copper and Outside Plant Records, whereby third-party engineers don't document what fixes they make to existing cabinets (called turrets) and some 30% of lines don't go to the places they are supposed to go to. This makes upgrading to FTTC very tricky. How much have these been issues for the UK?

2) FTTC cabinets are getting smaller but are they upgradable to FTTH? There was talk that blades could be inserted to make upgrading easier but this would be a problem in a small cabinet, wouldn't it?

3) After an initial FTTC rollout, the plan is to add Vectoring around three years later (after 2016). How viable would this be?

4) We are told that the whole country will be guaranteed 25Mb/s downloads by 2016, even though we'd have to switch from a fully planned FTTH rollout which is flying along. Does such a rollout sound viable?

5) To what extent has vandalism and theft from cabinets actually been a problem?

6) What do people get if they are told that its uneconomic to have a cabinet put in their area?

7) Does anyone in the UK still think FTTH is a waste of money?

8) Is there really a big backlash against having ugly cabinets on streets?

Any help you give would be seen by the highest levels of Australian government. The more hard evidence the better.

Thanks for any help you can provide.

Lots of stuff spread over our news on www.thinkbroadband.com but to go by the numbers

1. Copper generally is very good and does not corrode, what you get is bad joints or cracked cables, or insulation that has worn through. Line records generally seem reasonable in the UK, i.e. not a major issue

2. UK is doing a fibre on demand roll-out where the cabinet is bypassed and a fibre aggregation node (GPON splitter) that is close to the cabinet can be used to order FTTH but at a cost. Believe the possible NBN plan includes this, price is in the range of £700 to £1000 for half of UK households, and launches in a week or two. By end of year available as paid option to almost 2/3rds of UK

3. Vectoring restores some of the speed lost by crosstalk, and is not used in the UK yet, but Germany is going that direction. Viable, real world results, so new there are not many to go by.

4. Guaranteeing 25 Mbps is a tall order, but that said the FTTH rollout was to only 93%. If FTTC is going to 100% then a big diference, and from my reading some areas where FTTC is slow speeds will still get FTTH.

5. Theft just normal copper cable theft is the issue, but even with fibre it will take a few years for the crooks to learn that fibre is worthless as scrap

6. Some areas have clubbed together to pay a subsidy to get the cab installed. Others have elected for an alternate operator using fixed wireless or a full FTTH solution.

7. BT is still saying FTTC is the right choice for now, and if you take the company with shareholders view then yes it probably is. If you UK was willing to spend billions like Aus then FTTH would be the only real sensible solution. UK is will have spent £2.5 billion on commercial FTTC roll-out to 2/3rds, then around £2bn (half gov half private investment) to get FTTC to the next 24%, and then the rest will see some spending to improve speeds to 2Mbps. A further £300m is set aside for 2015 onwards, but no set plans as yet.

8. There is the odd nimby, but one or two councils objected but are coming around. See our news on ways to camouflage cabinets with vinyl skins to blend them in or make them useful information boards.

Thanks for that.

With regards to point two, does that involve building a separate cabinet? Is that what this is?

http://www.thinkbroadband.com/images/news/4212-fttc-...

Thanks.

That is a standard FTTC cabinet.

FTTP using GPON can be run for 20km from the main exchange (central office) building and is often underground.

Some UK BT FTTP kit pictures at
http://blog.thinkbroadband.com/2013/04/it-is-surpris...
http://blog.thinkbroadband.com/2012/11/spotters-guid... (there is a FTTC cabinet in this lot)
http://www.farina1.com/fibre/ A load of FTTP stuff

How some FTTC cabinets are being hidden
http://www.thinkbroadband.com/news/5745-do-you-have-...

Also see about half way down the page for rough speed distribution for UK loop. As I understand it Australia has a smaller population but a lot more street cabinets, so the distribution will be different, but for those with 1 km distance from home to cabinet FTTC will give similar speeds
http://www.thinkbroadband.com/guide/fibre-broadband....

Ooo. Sort of, but not quite.

Rutland Telecom is a small operation in one part of the country, running alongside the major BT Openreach rollout.

In the UK we have three types of conventional landline "fibre" provision, and one completely different solution.

BT are doing mainly FTTC (Fibre To The Cabinet), a bit of FTTP/H/B (Premises/Home/Building), and imminently FTTPoD (FTTP on Demand). Then there is Virgin Media Cable which is totally different. For your purposes you can ignore the Virgin Media service.

Have a read of this page to see how FTTC is organised. Then see this page for all the FTTC cabinets and most of the "phone" cabinets. WIth some Virgin Media Cable ones below.

FTTP - MrSaffron is better equipped than me to explain.

FTTP on Demand is organised by FTTC cabinet area. Meaning it is only available where FTTC already is. This seems to be purely an administrative convenience, as the FTTC cabinet is not used to supply it. MrSaffron has several relevant articles in the Main Site News Bulletins you found that picture in.

In reply to a post by MrSaffron:

That is a standard FTTC cabinet.

But not an Openreach one?

Correct

Regarding 1 and Bad Joints, any idea how many joints in any specific line?

For example, my line is about 1,300 metres long, the final 125 metrws from the cabinet having one known (wrapped) joint "in the middle".

Working back towards the exchange, there is the joint in the (street} cabinet.

The main exchange cable then comes across the street to outside my house, where there is a three-section underground jointing chamber, followed by another one about 100 metres nearer the exchange, and at least one more about 300 metres further on.

So in the final 500 metres at my end, there are at least four joints, 1967 installation, all underground. Original 1967 chamber was single section, enlarged in 1986 to three section.

This suggests that there could be about a dozen joints between my house and the exchange, all vulnerable etc.

If adsl stars for line are in top end for line length then joints are ok

Agreed that as my ADSL2 BB Speed is around 15 Mbps, then my line is OK.

However, what I am trying to establish is how many joints there are likely to be in any line.

For example, if the main u/g cable is supplied in say 300 metre lengths, then there must be joints at about that interval; and that if cabinets don't coincide with a supplied cable length, then there must be additional joints, as demonstrated by the 75 metre length outside my house, although that does not explain the short 25 Metre length going across the road to the local cabinet, which has a 4-section underground chamber.

I am asking the question as probably the majority of users, phone and/or broadband, have no idea of the practicalities of such cabling installations (and that can be expanded to other services such as electricity, water, sewer, gas etc).

I have since cross-checked the longer u/g run, it is 380 metres approximately, suggesting that the cable drum length was around 1200 feet.

It is a virtually straight, simple run, through a combination of public park and sports field, thus no need in 1967 to allow for other cabinets etc.; and that remains the situation today, as expansion of the town in this area is beyond or the country side of the local cabinet.

This estate was one of the first to have phone lines laid in to each and every house whilst being built in 1967; hence in 1978, whilst UK "domestic penetration" was 65% generally (Scotland ~ 55%), on this estate, it was in excess of 85%. (Penetration = installed working phone lines)