FTTP overbuild?

Hi,

Noticed in my area there has been new cabinets popping up - We've had Virgin from 2002 - I guess this is FTTP overbuild. They are using the smallest cabinets ive seen.. check picture?


https://ibb.co/x6Z7sj0

Will they stop using DOCSIS soon or whats the official word

They're going to have FTTP available to all of their served homes by 2028. DoCSIS is going to be around for a while: no date yet for switching it off.

Think that's what VM call a Level 4 distribution cabinet.

Here is a snapshot of the insides. The inset is a picture of a Boostral (DOCSIS RFoG fibre to coax converter) located at the customer premises and the colour-coded wavelength ID scheme for the various drops.

They have similar looking Level 3 Node (trunk fibre aggregation cabinet) but the insides look quite different.

Very cool thanks!

Hmm. Those are not VMSD1is. The L3/4 distribution cabinets have ventilation at the front, not the side, and their door is at the front not the side. They're also not that shape, that guy looks deeper but less wide.

I think these are a bit different and for overbuild only.

There is a mix of these pillar type (next to old cabinets) and the slightly bigger ones (gray coloured) and used in bits of town that were installed around 2017.

In reply to a post by XGS_Is_On:

Hmm. Those are not VMSD1is. The L3/4 distribution cabinets have ventilation at the front, not the side, and their door is at the front not the side. They're also not that shape, that guy looks deeper but less wide.

I think these are a bit different and for overbuild only.

Any idea on what they're housing - a stack of splice trays or more to it?

In reply to a post by Pheasant:

In reply to a post by XGS_Is_On:

Hmm. Those are not VMSD1is. The L3/4 distribution cabinets have ventilation at the front, not the side, and their door is at the front not the side. They're also not that shape, that guy looks deeper but less wide.

I think these are a bit different and for overbuild only.

Any idea on what they're housing - a stack of splice trays or more to it?

Purely a guess but a splitter node seems likely. In common with the HFC layout however many customer drops coming in and a single fibre or in the case of HFC trunk coaxial cable going out.

Perhaps they are using subducts to bypass the old cabinet and routing fibre to the new one where they aggregate the customer drops, combine them and send them off elsewhere.

The different sizes of cabinets depending on the age of the plant also suggests they're doing something with the older cabinets that there isn't room to do in the newer ones. Perhaps the older ones are housing an ODF while the newer ones have to house splitter and ODF hence larger?

Just speculation, not least because some cabinets won't pass enough premises to merit their own splitter node which would permit use of smaller stand off cabinets in some cases as they just need ODFs to aggregate the drops while every older cabinet passing 64+ premises will need to either have a splitter in the shell of be serviced by one.

Edited by XGS_Is_On (Tue 06-Sep-22 20:42:46)

If they’re not housing actives that need power and ventilation, it’s interesting that they continue deploying cabinets for stuff like splitters and distribution nodes. Maybe plonking a cabinet on a plinth is cheaper and faster than having decent sized UG chambers which you can stuff a waterproof enclosure in.

In reply to a post by Pheasant:

If they’re not housing actives that need power and ventilation, it’s interesting that they continue deploying cabinets for stuff like splitters and distribution nodes. Maybe plonking a cabinet on a plinth is cheaper and faster than having decent sized UG chambers which you can stuff a waterproof enclosure in.

I presume it is, hence why CityFibre and others use them. The existing HFC chambers are full of coaxial goodness, no room for nodes. I note the VM FTTP build is seeing a fair amount of upgrade, too, in terms of new chambers and additional duct which is interesting. In these parts they're building chambers either side of road crossings, installing new duct between a bunch of chambers and hooking into BT chambers where previously they made zero use of PIA.

I presume there was a rethink on the specifications of the original build and future expansion is being considered.

Edited by XGS_Is_On (Wed 07-Sep-22 10:10:08)