King of Copper

For interest.

Had a contract to open up and do some work to improve broadband performance for customers on a 4800/0.32 cable. This is the largest pair count copper cable in the UK network. The King of Copper.

https://ibb.co/rwgwPMc
https://ibb.co/QQKSdN3

Impressive, most impressive.

Nice roomy and dry in there, close proximity to the welfare room too, cushty.

Lose the waffles, HR�s a plenty.

Wow

Yep, those things are a nightmare.

Also-is that thing basically a massive clip joint?

I can�t help thinking how bad that would be if someone with a chainsaw ripped through all those cables �Die Hard� style..... no doubt that would cause a headache...

Edited by derekdel (Mon 29-Apr-19 08:19:49)

In reply to a post by derekdel:

I can�t help thinking how bad that would be if someone with a chainsaw ripped through all those cables �Die Hard� style..... no doubt that would cause a headache...

Funny you said that, I was also thinking the exact same thing LOL

Paul

Except that it can and does happen ... not quite �Die Hard� fashion .... but cables get cut, stolen etc with great regularity.

Indeed. A few years ago I remember a whole exchange area going off due to copper theft. Took a few days to fix. This was back when hardly anyone was on FTTC.

But in some ways the FTTC network is just as vulnerable, especially when you think of the longer distance fibre cables coming from the headend to feed the cabinets. But that�s more likely to be damaged, rather than stolen.

Yep ....

Went to a copper dis fault, on some small business units in the middle of nowhere (think 600 + meters from the nearest road)

Eventually found my one leg dis, had initially ruled out this 4 box �cos no joints in it, some little tinker had run a knife down the side of the 50 pair and the BFT to see which was which prior to returning to steal it later ....

They had just snicked the 50, and only dissed one leg .... miserable sods.

>>Also-is that thing basically a massive clip joint?

30 years ago the Districts were run as independent businesses.

The District Senior Managers got an all expenses paid 'business trip' to Florida paid for by Western Electric / AT&T

A few months later we got a few container loads of Western Electric / AT&T MDF turning up and an instruction manual how to install / convert .

Them clip ups were in the container.

In reply to a post by partial:

30 years ago the Districts were run as independent businesses.

In those days the customer fault and ordering systems were also completely separate, each district had its own instance of a system called CSS

CSS is still there in the background. It's proved too big and too important an archive to change.

In reply to a post by witchunt:

CSS is still there in the background. It's proved too big and too important an archive to change.

Good to know hopefully the current front end system is more user friendly as I'm not sure the younger generation would get on with a system without point and click (no criticism of the younger generation as front ends have moved on a lot).

Some of the workarounds they�ve used to get things working with CSS are quite impressive too!

Utilising the old trunk part of it for the FTTC routing, for instance.

It will be a good day when that monstrosity is recovered and stripped having been replaced by what could easily be a single 15.4mm diameter, 192 count fibre cable.

Interesting to see how things used to be - that monstrosity will hopefully soon join massive coaxial cables in the archives.

Off to the Tower for you. That's no way to talk about Cable Royalty.

Edited by deleted (Tue 30-Apr-19 21:39:30)