Pole-mounted BT equipment

Have recently returned from mid-Wales where it appears that BT Openreach are making considerable moves to get folks connected to the wider world, and many poles seem to have 'fibre cable' strung along.

The interesting thing is that lots of Pole-mounted green "boxes" have started to appear, with what looks to me like this 'fibre cable' coming down the pole and going into them. These boxes are mounted on the poles at chest height, are about 2ft long, and painted in BT green (the same as their street cabinets).
I have a couple of pictures, but seem unable to attach to this posting for others to try and identify. [If someone can help here, I'd be grateful.]

Knowing that BT need some sort of fibre "equipment" to get broadband out to the farms and houses out in the wider countryside, sight of these may be of interest to other rural members here, as I've previously not seen one of these before!

Sounds like fibre to the remote node or FTTrN

Does it look like this - http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-a_RXnNSxjxU/Va37QYTrGkI/AA...

Edited by deleted (Mon 21-Mar-16 13:09:01)

Wales is now at the stage of rolling out at a lot of FTTP so more likely to be fibre splitters than FTTrN

I actually did originally post that it could be either fibre splitters or fttrn but then removed it as wasn't sure

Yes, it's what is shown in that picture.

So, a fibre splitter, eh. Well, I'll go to the foot of our stairs!

Just annoying that out in mid-Wales BT can be putting these in, yet here in rural Bedfordshire there's no sign of anything like that - and CBC's BDUK plans don't seem to have us in line for anything like that for another 3 years!! Really annoying, when our little village has to crawl along at little more than dial-up speeds in the evening. BT seem to have just used the BDUK funding as a 'bank loan' to finance them whilst dealing with the middle tier of difficulty in provision to the country.

Most of the work in Wales is down to Superfast Wales, they're really pushing fibre closer to rural communities.

Some of these things have been up on poles with nothing connected to them for over 18 months.

In other areas in Wales I've seen 5 of these on a 1/2 mile stretch of road with only 4 farms in that area, and in another village there are two of these on poles next to each other which wil presumably feed the 4 houses nearby.

As part of the Superfast Cymru Big Build, FTTC cabs were due to be installed to connect the current cabs, then FTTP was the next steps. EO lines would come 3rd, then satelltite, wireless or other technologies to do the rest.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X1jqyCreCts

They seemed to go for the easy solution of new cabs for EO lines 1st, then FTTC, FTTP etc.

I'm not complaining, I went from a decent 7.5 line to 80 due to a new "EO Cab", and a few weeks after the exchange for FTTC became live, ADSL2+ became available too.

My sister on the otherhand is still stuck on 1Mbit/s miles away from the exchange. Since the summer a couple of new poles have been erected in the field next to her house and fibre a splitter was put up soon after, but none of these are connected to anything yet.

There doesn't seem to be a pattern to how things are setup and no rhyme or reason to the order they do things.

Edited by mrijones (Mon 21-Mar-16 15:52:52)

Hardly a "bank loan" as I understand BT only get reimbursed on the provision of invoices for work done/completed. No BDUK money is used to fund BT's commercial upgrade.

At least you are covered by BDUK funding, more than is the case of those of us living in the larger cities who, for whatever reason, are still stuck on ADSL with no prospect of BDUK funding although that might of course change in the future.

The YouTube clip will be a highly simplistic summary.

Oddly for everyone who moans about EO getting done early there is another person moaning they are left out totally.

Priorities vary across the UK and its not always a linear do a,b,c,d,e,f tasks, often these can be mixed around to suit the mixture of skills available in an area, i.e. if teams doing the FTTP fibre splitters onto poles would be otherwise twiddling thumbs the planners may send them to a native FTTP area, even though the duct/fibre blower team is not expected for a long time.

Actually the commercial roll-out particularly in London is starting to deliver cabinets again, but all depends on where you are of course.

There also appears to be a misconception that EO lines are short lines and can therefore expect to already see good speeds from ADSL. As you know, this is far from the case, our EO lines being c2km in length putting our current ADSL speeds in the lowest 0.4% for Lambeth (TBB figures) although admittedly they are faster than many deeply rural isolated hamlets.

Well yes, the fideo is qute simplistic and nobody could expect such a huge project to be as simple as that, but the general idea they've given all along was that the people without, or with slow broadband were going to benefit first.

Maybe there'd been a disjoin between the marketing people and the actual people planning/delivering the service.

I don't envy the team behind the Superfast Cymru facebook page though, everytime they posted updates about new fttc availability every post would get a torrents of complaints about how slow there were in other places and they should got out from their cosy offices and actually install stuff. How a marketing team could be expected to help out with the actual laying of cables and installing cabs I've no idea.

What I don't understand is why this stuff (FTTP) is suddenly on the side of poles. If I think of FTTP locations near here, Chester South and Saltney all you have are the manifolds at the top of the poles. The rest of the FTTP network is underground. Why the change to having FTTP splitters on the sides of poles?

Cheaper than building a joint box to put it in

Only 2km ... I know of some that are probably getting near 10km. A friend of a friend at around that and gets about 1Mbps on ADSL, it is very stable though and they have several line into the property, family, business, staff and more with ADSL on them all.. The chance of him seeing FTTC is NIL - between the house and exchange there are maybe 4 or 5 other properties. He cannot "see" a satellite as there is a large hill or small mountain and forest to contend with. He is just waiting for a FTRN install - if it ever happens!

In reply to a post by Ribble:

Cheaper than building a joint box to put it in

Yes, that's true.

I wasn't trying to say that a 2km EO line was anything special, although perhaps so in a major city, instead I was supporting my statement that by no means are all EO lines close to their exchange and thus not all can expect to see reasonable speeds on ADSL and therefore warrant upgrading to FTTC/FTTrN/FTTP as appropriate.

I have a couple of pictures, but seem unable to attach to this posting for others to try and identify.

You can upload picture files to a site like this (others are available):-

http://postimage.org/

and then copy and paste the link onto your post.

I was just trying to reinforce the fact that EO lines can be long, very long or very, very long!

Indeed, if there are only a handful of properties in a certain direction from the exchange, that are spaced quite far apart, it wouldn't make sense to put a PCP in place.

I appreciate that now, that you were reinforcing rather than "criticising" my comment. My apologies if my post suggested otherwise.

In some ways glad I don't do Facebook for that exact reason, its bad enough when we mention new cabinets or interesting snippets we've noticed when doing our coverage checks.

Wales is interesting as many believe its current target is 96% superfast, when it is not, it is 96% fibre based, which will be around 90% superfast. The next phase will take this onto 95% superfast.

Alas once you get to such high figures, the presumption is that I must be in the 'superfast' area.

The marketing could have been so much better, but then as I've found as soon as you attempt anything more than a soundbite explanation people switch off and just want you to give a short yes or no, and refuse to accept anything that may slightly grey.

In reply to a post by Icaras:

What I don't understand is why this stuff (FTTP) is suddenly on the side of poles. If I think of FTTP locations near here, Chester South and Saltney all you have are the manifolds at the top of the poles. The rest of the FTTP network is underground. Why the change to having FTTP splitters on the sides of poles?

They've been using the green boxes as pictured in Lee's post, here in Cornwall for years - in support of the FTTP rollouts here. Not "suddenly" at all

IIRC it may have to do with lack of space to put them - I've seen them in extremely rural areas where there aren't any obvious manholes to plonk the splitters in (and maybe they even use aerial fibre)

In reply to a post by mrijones:

There doesn't seem to be a pattern to how things are setup and no rhyme or reason to the order they do things.

Makes no sense where I am either. Some streets got FTTP, the rest got FTTC. Greenfield or brownfield, doesn't matter, nor does it matter if it's a town centre or farmers and hundreds of acres. Even parts of streets got FTTP and others didn't, simply because they're served from a different copper cabinet so BT obviously considers it a different bit of the rollout. Some extremely rural areas are on FTTP, others got FTTC, others are still waiting (and may be pushed onto satellite).

They did get the stuff up and running quickly enough though - which is why I don't believe the arguments about rollout speed or lack of resources - as they can damn well do it when they feel like it.

Can't wait for the fun when we find out that the FTTC areas will be waiting years for "improvements" like G.fast (ugh) and its compromised performance, whereas the places that got FTTP originally are able to get 1Gbit or something brilliant at a flick of a switch. Such is the reality of BT's stupid lottery.

Edited by deleted (Mon 21-Mar-16 20:25:24)

In reply to a post by sor:

IIRC it may have to do with lack of space to put them - I've seen them in extremely rural areas where there aren't any obvious manholes to plonk the splitters in (and maybe they even use aerial fibre)

Essentially, the pole-mounted boxes are used where aerial distribution is in place - that is, the D-side cables are strung pole-pole-pole - rather than underground distribution.

Pole-top manifolds are used where the drop-wires are aerial. Obviously you get both boxes and manifolds where both the distribution and drop wires are aerial.

Here's a diagram showing a variety of distribution methods, with 5 pole-mounted boxes:
Overhead Distribution - Two levels of split

Note too that the green boxes aren't just splitters. There are 6 different types, covering a multitude of splitter, DP and jointing functions:
Pole-mounted Box Types

In reply to a post by MrSaffron:

Wales is now at the stage of rolling out at a lot of FTTP so more likely to be fibre splitters than FTTrN

Indeed.

Those in urban and suburban areas, with the exception of some apartment blocks, desiring FTTP are way better served looking at rural areas on Rightmove than a broadband comparison site.

In reply to a post by MCM:

Hardly a "bank loan" as I understand BT only get reimbursed on the provision of invoices for work done/completed. No BDUK money is used to fund BT's commercial upgrade.

Although of course BT is able to be very selective about where "commercial" rollout is done as they know sooner or later the rest will get funded.... so...

Although of course BT is able to be very selective about where "commercial" rollout is done as they know sooner or later the rest will get funded.... so...

And your point is? BT is a PRIVATE company answerable to its shareholders and thus expected to make a profit from any capital investment, just like any other company. Now if BT were instead to be a public corporation sucking money from tax payers and the treasury without regard to cost the position might be different and we, as a nation, would no doubt be even deeper in the mire. I for one have no wish at all to see BT returned to public ownership as I have all too vivid memories of the appalling state of British Telecom in the 1970s.

BT is not a monopoly and hasn't been since the mid-80s regardless of what others seem to mistakenly seem to believe so there is nothing stopping others setting up their stall in any part of the UK, instead they have tended to cherry pick and only operate where they feel they can make a profit. Why should BT be any different? It is also my understanding that BDUK money has mainly been used to gap fund upgrades rather than pay the entire cost.

In reply to a post by MCM:

BT is not a monopoly

The government disagrees - Openreach is very much a monopoly (even in areas with Virgin, there is no other open access operator), though BT Wholesale is in some areas and BT Retail isn't at all.

In reply to a post by MCM:

and hasn't been since the mid-80s regardless of what others seem to mistakenly seem to believe so there is nothing stopping others setting up their stall in any part of the UK, instead they have tended to cherry pick and only operate where they feel they can make a profit. Why should BT be any different? It is also my understanding that BDUK money has mainly been used to gap fund upgrades rather than pay the entire cost.

Because BT is unique in that it has the duct and pole network, and (currently) is allowed to ensure that no one other than BT is allowed to put cables in or on them. It is simply ludicrous to assume that every operator must undertake an extremely time consuming, costly and risky overlay of that infrastructure from scratch. The cable companies tried; they all went bust - it took decades of bankruptcy, mergers and licking wounds for its successor to try again in any meaningful scale. Look at the US, where they expect new entrants to do just that. They've ended up with a situation where city governments are pleading with Google and their enormous pockets to step in and break the real monopoly/duopoly.

BT also receives enormous incomes from its position as the monopoly infraco, making money regardless of who the end user chooses for their provider. They are also the largest recipient of taxpayer money for "rural" broadband rollouts. That is why BT is expected to act differently to any other operator. The same reason why Royal Mail has to deliver to every house in the country, for example.

Countries that once looked to the UK for tips on how to wrangle their incumbent telco (NZ, most notably - even going as far as hiring a BT exec to run their telco), have now surpassed us - they're well on the way to a proper fibre network, while we stick with antiquated copper bodges that will cost more for BT in the long run, while holding the country back for another decade

Edited by deleted (Tue 22-Mar-16 20:38:22)

BT is not a monopoly, anyone or company is free and legally able to set up an alternative. Perhaps some people need revisit and understand the meaning of the word monopoly rather than twist its meaning. A monopoly is where one individual, company or the state has the exclusive right to supply or trade. BT has no such exclusive right.

BT may well be, in some areas, effectively a monopoly due to no other company having the inclination to compete or set up an alternative network but there is nothing legally to prevent others setting up in competition. Now if it were illegal for another company to compete then, yes, BT would be a monopoly however that hasn't been the case since the mid 1980s.

In reply to a post by sor:

In reply to a post by MCM:

BT is not a monopoly

The government disagrees

Ah well, if the government disagrees and think Openreach are a monopoly, then it must be true!

Edited by deleted (Tue 22-Mar-16 21:35:09)

In reply to a post by sor:

Because BT is unique in that it has the duct and pole network, and (currently) is allowed to ensure that no one other than BT is allowed to put cables in or on them.

I thought BT had been forced to allow other companies to access their ducting.

In reply to a post by MCM:

Although of course BT is able to be very selective about where "commercial" rollout is done as they know sooner or later the rest will get funded.... so...

And your point is? BT is a PRIVATE company answerable to its shareholders and thus expected to make a profit from any capital investment, just like any other company. Now if BT were instead to be a public corporation sucking money from tax payers and the treasury without regard to cost the position might be different and we, as a nation, would no doubt be even deeper in the mire. I for one have no wish at all to see BT returned to public ownership as I have all too vivid memories of the appalling state of British Telecom in the 1970s.

BT is not a monopoly and hasn't been since the mid-80s regardless of what others seem to mistakenly seem to believe so there is nothing stopping others setting up their stall in any part of the UK, instead they have tended to cherry pick and only operate where they feel they can make a profit. Why should BT be any different? It is also my understanding that BDUK money has mainly been used to gap fund upgrades rather than pay the entire cost.

BT is effectively still a monopoly - it owns the core infrastructure - and indeed the only infrastructure in large parts of the country, and the considerable initial costs of such it inherited and indeed still uses - those ducts, the thousands upon thousands of miles of ducting, chambers and the many thousands of miles of cabling that is still in use and in service.

Sure, they've added a load more too of course, but that which they've added would be entirely useless without the rest of the inherited stuff.

They might be a private company but they were created and continue to use the assets, some of which are not physical but intangibles.

They were, years ago.

Other ISP's have chosen not to use them, because rolling out a network isn't cheap.

In reply to a post by MCM:

BT is not a monopoly, anyone or company is free and legally able to set up an alternative. Perhaps some people need revisit and understand the meaning of the word monopoly rather than twist its meaning. A monopoly is where one individual, company or the state has the exclusive right to supply or trade. BT has no such exclusive right.

BT may well be, in some areas, effectively a monopoly due to no other company having the inclination to compete or set up an alternative network but there is nothing legally to prevent others setting up in competition. Now if it were illegal for another company to compete then, yes, BT would be a monopoly however that hasn't been the case since the mid 1980s.

They have Significant Market Power.

They have the advantage of the inheritance of the GPO

They have and continue to benefit from being the default and incumbent.

Please don't try playing word semantics when you know damn well what people mean.

You appear to have great difficulty in accepting and understanding the meaning of the word monopoly. BT is not a legal monopoly. That others have chosen not to challenge BT in some areas of the UK, primarily rural areas, does not make BT a legal monopoly. You are misusing the word monopoly.

BT own their assets, they are not the states and haven't been since BT was privatised when the state sold the company and for which it received payment.

BT own their assets, they are not the states and haven't been since BT was privatised when the state sold the company and for which it received payment.

Indeed, I believe the sale of BT to shareholders made quite a significant sum of money for the UK government. It wasn't given to them but was a sale. People seem to think BT got all this stuff free.

>They have and continue to benefit from being the default and incumbent.

And that is what grinds my gears, people don't want Openreach to be dominant but as soon as poor broadband is mentioned they all run to go ask Openreach for a solution.

In reply to a post by MrSaffron:

>They have and continue to benefit from being the default and incumbent.

And that is what grinds my gears, people don't want Openreach to be dominant but as soon as poor broadband is mentioned they all run to go ask Openreach for a solution.

Who says that (except for Sky, TalkTalk and Virgin)? The complaints are typically aimed at BT/Openreach because they don't want to do what really needs to be done, and they don't want others to do it and make a success of it, either - such as overbuilding their own FTTP in areas where someone has already built one, or years ago they were rolling out ADSL after someone's built a wireless network due to the lack of interest from BT).

If they said "we're going to do lots of FTTP" I think people would cheer them on. One network and universal service makes sense, and it obviously makes them a lot of money - but that comes with responsibilities that Openreach/BT have tried to shirk

Edited by deleted (Wed 23-Mar-16 09:59:42)

So, if BT have a presence you want others to also be able to be there to compete so they don't have a "monopoly".

But, if someone else builds in an area then you consider it to be "overbuilding" if BT put something in there?

Surely that is contradictory?

Having a completely unregulated provider as the only option (eg such as potentially a wireless provider) means that customer's have no choice but to pay whatever that provider wants them to pay - that may be fine but could result in poor and expensive solutions that are not regulated by anyone.

In reply to a post by ian72:

So, if BT have a presence you want others to also be able to be there to compete so they don't have a "monopoly".

But, if someone else builds in an area then you consider it to be "overbuilding" if BT put something in there?

Surely that is contradictory?

Not at all. I don't think it's proper that BT only plays its best game when others have proven BT wrong, by managing to do what BT claims is unviable, impossible, impractical, etc.

The process is this:

BT ignores area
Someone else steps in to provide what BT won't
BT then decides that the area is viable after all
More recently, they not only come to the area, but they gold plate it by installing a service that would never have been installed had they been the first to deploy (e.g. doing FTTP because someone else has, despite generally using FTTC)

BT then uses its considerable resources and significant market power to quash the "competition".

It's the bit about using FTTP that is most telling - it wouldn't be noteworthy if they'd installed FTTC. They'll spend far more than they have to, while refusing to spend similar cash or offering a similar level of service in places where there isn't already an FTTP competitor. What happened to the "expense" of FTTP as an excuse for not deploying it? Why isn't FTTC good enough? They think it's fine for everyone else. It's the telecom equivalent of the "bus wars" of the 90s


If BT had been deploying FTTP as a rule I wouldn't see a problem with them overbuilding the FTTP networks of others.

In reply to a post by ian72:

Having a completely unregulated provider as the only option (eg such as potentially a wireless provider) means that customer's have no choice but to pay whatever that provider wants them to pay - that may be fine but could result in poor and expensive solutions that are not regulated by anyone.

So not that far off the days of old, where those of us who were stuck on BT Wholesale IPstream were paying considerably higher prices for worse service (2Mbps, then later up to 8Mbps ADSL instead of the 4/8/24 that everyone else offered, and a horrific ordeal getting BT to upgrade capacity when congestion reared its ugly head).

There's still a lot of people stuck on that network as BT hasn't even deployed ADSL2+ at their exchange (meanwhile, at exchanges like mine, they deployed ADSL2+ after doing FTTC/FTTP to almost all of its serving area)

BT can't have it both ways - if they want to be the monopoly (which they do, since they don't want an Openreach separation), they shouldn't get to squander it - only making an effort when someone else tries to, or government forces them to

Edited by deleted (Wed 23-Mar-16 11:00:27)

I wonder what percentage of BT build is "overbuild" in the circumstances you describe and how much is not related to that at all. I suspect that the overbuild is very small compared to the rest of the rollout.

Overbuild is a hot topic and to be frank I've seen some cabinets go in that make little sense, but as the gap funding is adjusted to take account of overbuild, a project is contributing less for those ones.

To do a proper analysis would take a lot of people a lot of time, particularly as to get to the bottom of it, rather than 'opinion' one would need access to historical roll-out data from both Openreach and the alt-net and also co-operation from BDUK projects to review the OMR data they received.

Cost versus benefit starts to look dodgy. Certainly some overbuilds where people complain that BT turned up mob handed are areas where a vague plan has existed for some time before the mob turned up.

Hi Andrew. The overbuild I meant wasn't the BDUK but where BT have gone into an area after an alternate provider (such as wireless) had gone in because BT had said it wasn't viable. I know in the early days of ADSL there were areas where wireless providers went out of business because BT then enabled the area but I think percentage wise it is a pretty small number of properties affected.

The argument being put forwards was that BT target areas that get alternatives that they had previously said weren't viable - I suspect BT are not quite that mercenary and would not target an area just because another provider started to deliver there.

>They have and continue to benefit from being the default and incumbent.

And that is what grinds my gears, people don't want Openreach to be dominant but as soon as poor broadband is mentioned they all run to go ask Openreach for a solution.

Very well said.

Please don't try playing word semantics when you know damn well what people mean.

You really do appear to be the one having difficulty comprehending and using the English language. Significant market presence in some areas is NOT a monopoly otherwise for example there would be no B4RN, Gigaclear or CityFibre.

If the commercial world then its commercial competition, unless there is legislation to give different firms the franchise for broadband in an area.