Something is happening in Brackley...

First thing this morning an Openreach engineer was wandering around my street lifting chamber covers and typing into a laptop. Came back from shopping later and now there's three OR vans with a large tripod near my cabinet. Looks like they might finally be putting fibre into the ground.

The large tripod may well be safety equipment for someone working down a manhole

In reply to a post by Zarjaz:

The large tripod may well be safety equipment for someone working down a manhole

Turns out it was to support a large cable drum and they were shoving a thick orange cable into the ground. There's no other activity that I've noticed elsewhere though and that's the first cab you get to if you drive from Banbury (effectively our head-end) into our town.

Maybe just upgrading the main feed in preparation? Time will tell. I seem to recall that their last programme implied before end of this year.

There's an Openreach van outside and they are stuffing thick yellow cable into the ground. Looks like a fighting chance of a third FTTP supplier by end of the year and this is one I can use without changing ISP.

That sounds more like Cobra rods to me.

Ah ha! This morning a van I've seen in various places around town has turned up. It says 'Fibre Optic Connections Ltd' on the side. There is what I assume is a manifold and a fair bit of black cable which they are pulling through the ducting.

Interestingly as noted before they are only doing it along one side of the road. Given this is a cul-de-sac I can see no reason why they'd only fibre up half the road so there must be some plan to get fibre across the road to the other half of the properties. Do they run some fibres up one side and down the other? Or just run a trench across at some point?

Edited by Andrue (Thu 13-Feb-25 12:29:38)

In reply to a post by Andrue:

Do they run some fibres up one side and down the other? Or just run a trench across at some point?

Dunno about your installers, but here Swish fibre used the second option (trench across).

As regards Openreach network and housing built in the 1960’s to very early 1990’s , these properties generally have DIG armoured cable house lead in’s and often would have ‘infrastructure’ only on one side only of the street .
At certain points from the existing jointboxes ( on the side of the road that has infrastructure ) , ducted road crossings were provided but without a corresponding jointbox box opposite, the duct end not in a jointbox , simply underground in the verge alongside the road , basically the armoured cables for one side of the road originate from the side of the road with the infrastructure, through the road crossing duct and then are buried directly to each of the properties on that side of the road .

This means one side of that road is financially a much better proposition than the other side , where adding all new joint boxes and duct will cost much more per tenancy than the side with some existing infrastructure , that side obviously will need much less new construction….in these situations Openreach and Alt Nets using PIA often do the cheaper/easier side and not the expensive side of the street …so you can have a street where FTTP is available on one side but not the other

Edited by Iniltous (Fri 14-Feb-25 09:52:51)

The opening statement is a huge generalisation. Lots of different set ups were used.

Don’t see how you can accuse me of generalising, perhaps you missed my use of the qualifiers ‘generally’ and ‘often’ , it true lots of set ups were used , in the late 1970’s there was a change to underground radial distribution, but still based on armoured cables ….the OP stated the work they observed was limited to one side of the street , I gave a reason why that may have been the case , I’m certainly not saying I’m correct , just offering my point of view , if you have a different one , that fine you are entitled to your opinion, just the same as me

Edited by Iniltous (Fri 14-Feb-25 10:36:43)

In reply to a post by Andrue:

First thing this morning an Openreach engineer was wandering around my street lifting chamber covers and typing into a laptop. Came back from shopping later and now there's three OR vans with a large tripod near my cabinet. Looks like they might finally be putting fibre into the ground.

Looks like BT are accepting orders. I noticed today that whereas the availability checker was saying 'FTTP: No' it no longer mentions FTTP at all other than that it isn't a priority area.

On a whim I placed an upgrade order with IDNet and they are now waiting for confirmation of the installation date.

Engineer is here at the moment and one question is now answered. There is ducting under the road between my chamber and the one where the CBT is. He only had to pull a few metres of cable through. Interestingly the original engineers had provided a blue rope for him which I wasn't aware of.

Edited by Andrue (Mon 07-Jul-25 11:07:34)

congrats to the fibre Club, Andrue!

Manifold was the term used for the original BFT (blown fibre tubing) ‘milk bottles’. Seen on pole tops and in footway boxes.
The (then hollow) tubing was pushed onto the allocated colour port in the manifold and run to the location of the old style CSP.
At the fibre DP node, you located your corresponding coloured tube, set up your compressor, blowing head, etc … and if you’d done it right .. you rattled the four fibre bundle from DP to CSP. Spliced through to a live fibre. Ran in the eezee bend lead in to the four port ONT (fitted as standard) spliced through at the CSP, fired up your CF29 to activate the ONT ….. simple 🙄

As such they are now superseded by the connectorised multiport CBT’s.

Thanks for that! Slight problem now though. LOS is red so engineer is checking to see if the CBT has been connected to the network.

In reply to a post by Andrue:

Thanks for that! Slight problem now though. LOS is red so engineer is checking to see if the CBT has been connected to the network.

Lol. The engineer can see my light back at the splitter so now he's having to chase up the network team. He thinks I might be the first person in Brackley on the new cabling and that someone hasn't completed the connection to/at the exchange.

In reply to a post by Andrue:

The engineer can see my light back at the splitter so now he's having to chase up the network team. He thinks I might be the first person in Brackley on the new cabling and that someone hasn't completed the connection to/at the exchange.

I thought a light test was done on port 1 of each new CBT during the commissioning phase so are they taking shortcuts with commissioning these days?

I thought a light test was done on port 1 of each new CBT during the commissioning phase so are they taking shortcuts with commissioning these days?

Ya dangle the carrot, and corners get cut to reach the root veg.

You gotta love performance management, it brings out the best in everyone.

In reply to a post by Andrue:

Thanks for that! Slight problem now though. LOS is red so engineer is checking to see if the CBT has been connected to the network.

I’m kinda wondering why the engineer didn’t check for light at the CBT when they first got there ?

As the engineer had done all he could inside I left to play golf. When I got back home both green lights are lit. All is now working except for IPv6. The router that IDNet sent out 'preconfigured' apparently wasn't configured for IPv6. The out of office hours support chap didn't really know anything either so I have to wait for a ticket to be processed.

Slightly irritating, I do expect better from them.

Glad you’re all up and running now….. did you win the golf ?

It was only my usual practice session with a friend. Sadly after an awesome May I seem to have gone off the boil. I think the lack of rain and resulting hard ground has started to bite back. The extra distance is good on our longer front nine but is playing havoc with my club choices on the shorter back.

Oh well, it's what makes golf a great retirement hobby. There's always something to work on.

Still no working IPv6 but that should get sorted tomorrow. I also got tripped up by my server. It had a major update (Win 10 only) but as sometimes happens that caused the network profile to change back to public which meant the firewall locked it down. Why that happened on the same day that I was switching network stuff around is just another mystery of life. For sure it confused me for a while.

Edit: Thanks to someone suggesting that I use Google I now have IPv6 working. Turns out there was a setting I hadn't found previously. On the EWAN page I needed to check the IPv6 checkbox. Not great that IDNet failed to do that for me.

Edited by Andrue (Mon 07-Jul-25 22:28:04)

..and we sometimes wonder why telephony services cost so much.

I've just had a brief visit from an OR engineer looking to sort out the fault with my new FTTP installation. Thing is the fault was sorted out by the original engineer after he left my premises (something about the CBT not being activated yet). It's all been working fine since I got back home the evening of the installation over a week ago.

So despite my using the connection for over a week their own systems still had a fault logged for it.

In addition the engineer queried the number he had for the line because the person it belonged to lived on the other side of town. I switched to SOGEA over two years ago so apparently BT's various systems haven't been updated on that front either.