Posts Tagged ‘broadband’

HOW Andysworld! ULTRAFAST (FTTP) Broadband was installed.

Wednesday, July 4th, 2018

These are my notes, based on discussions with Openreach Engineers, recent discussions with friends (Thanks Peter) which also had FTTP installed in June/July 2018, and my observations of my installation on 3 July 2018.

There seems to be little documentation on the interweb, as to how FTTP/FTTH or Ultrafast broadband is now (July 2018) installed by Openreach. Openreach are now rolling out fibre over poles, because it’s a much cheaper method of delivering fibre to premises (FTTP). Engineers have informed me that deploying fibre underground by Openreach is stopping. (apart from new builds and estates!).

What I had read was out of date, not current, and now incorrect as of writing this (July 2018). It would appear that Openreach and their parent company BT, are reviewing installation techniques and procedures all the time, no doubt to make it quicker. At present based on discussions with Openreach Engineers, this is every 6 months. It may be possible in the future, that Openreach delivers FTTP as “wires” only, and you provide your own fibre router.

At present (July 2018):- Openreach

  • Do not blow fibre to the premises.
  • Do not use a fusion splicer to splice fibre or terminate in the property.

An 8 port fibre manifold is fitted to your telegraph pole which currently supplies your copper telephone line.

8 Fibre Connectors at top of pole

8 Fibre Connectors at top of pole

Fibre manifold before fitting my fibre cable

Fibre manifold before fitting my fibre cable

A ready made fibre cable is used to replace the existing copper telephone cable, this fibre cable is already pre-terminated at the pole end with the correct connector, these cables come in standard lengths, of 55m, 110m and longer. The new fibre cable is a “twin-ax” type infinity symbol looking cable. So only a single cable is connected from property to telegraph pole. This is the best picture I could get, sorry about the quality, normal service will resume as soon as possible!

The new "fibre cable" to house

The new "fibre cable" to house

  1. an armoured cable, and 4 outer layers protects the fragile internal fibre. (for FTTP – broadband)
  2. a copper 2 wire cable is also included. – this is used for copper telephone, and provision of telephone or ADSL 2/2+ if required.
  • Openreach usually fit the optical network terminator (ONT) next to the existing BT NTE5 master socket, but this can be changed, if asked nicely, so you do not need to have NTE5 and ONT near each other!*
  • ONT was secured and mounted on the wall.
  • The existing copper telephone cable at the eyebolt on the property is cut.
telephone line cut!

telephone line cut!

  • Pulley connected to the eyebolt. (I asked Openreach to insert a new eyebolt into the brick work, rather than use the existing on on the wooden soffit!)
  • The new fibre cable is secured to the end of the telephone (copper) line at the telegraph pole, and connects the fibre connector to the manifold on the pole.
fibre cable connected to manifold

fibre cable connected to manifold

  • The new fibre is pulled from the pole to the eyebolt, and it’s then secured. It has to be pulled from the pole, because it’s pre-terminated already when supplied.
  • Copper telephone line is re-connected at the telegraph pole.
  • A hole is drilled from inside the property to the outside, “through” the ONT (it’s done this way to stop any plaster falling of the wall internally, and it can be hidden easier on the outside!)
  • Copper telephone line is connected back to copper line on the property – (telephone restored)**
  • Fibre cable is inserted into building via hole.
  • The cable is stripped, fibre is cleaned, push fit fibre connector is used
  • Light tester is used to check the amount of light coming down the cable is within tolerance.***
  • Connected into ONT.****
External wiring to property notice two distinct cables copper and fibre!

External wiring to property notice two distinct cables copper and fibre! (connector and new eyebolt!)

The new ONT

Openreach Optical Network Terminator

Openreach Optical Network Terminator an AA battery is used to show the size of the ONT, which is massive! This has been used in installations since November 2017, and incorporates the ONT and Battery backup unit, in a special enclosure, to make it look a little smarter and cleaner! The unit is powered in the property, and if power is lost, the battery backup maintains it for 2 hours. (I've tested!)

Openreach Optical Network Terminator

Openreach Optical Network Terminator with panel open! Orange ethernet cable is to my router, green plug is the fibre through the wall!

I’m surprised there is no branding Openreach, or sticker…. just a blank whitebox! The charging light has no gone off, so only lit when charging!

Many Thanks to Peter, Paul, Mike (Openreach Engineer),  and Zen Internet.

*Lots of tea, coffee, sparkling water with ice, 2 plates of cookies and a plate of chocolate McVities digestives was offered and eaten by my two engineers! Keep them sweet!

**At present BT are the only company which have the FVA (Fibre Voice Access – e.g. telephone via Fibre), so at present until Zen have this product my fixed landline telephone lines still comes over copper!

***No fusion splicing!

****New ONT started being used in November 2017. It’s a large box, which incorporates the ONT and Battery Back unit, but all sealed in a larger box.

Here are a couple of web links, which I’ve used to understand FTTP more!

What is FTTP (Fibre to the Premises) Broadband?

Peter’s Business Website

How to build a Fibre Network



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Coming to you via ULTRAFAST (FTTP) Broadband – Activated Today – Journey’s END!

Tuesday, July 3rd, 2018

Like a pig in muck (he he!), and doing broadband speedtests does not get boring!!!

The Openreach Engineers eventually turned-up today, they were supposed to visit on 29 June 2018, but did not arrive despite me taking a whole day off work, waiting for them from 8am – 6pm!

They arrived today at 11.45am, and finished the installation at approximately 2.30pm.

Switch over, occurred at approx 4pm and I’ve gone from:-

1.5Mbps !!!

1.5Mbps !!!

to

7442271213

157Mbps !!!

Almost 100x faster!!! (if I wanted I could up this to 330/40), lets see how we get on!

Where 98% of the UK Internet population used to be faster than me, the tables are turned, and my broadband internet, is now 98% faster than the rest of the UK!!!

I’ll blog later, an update as to how the installation was carried out, because the majority of the FTTP information on the internet is out of date!

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Fibre is coming, Fibre is coming…..

Friday, September 1st, 2017

Hopefully, by Christmas 2017, fibre will be available in “the shire”.

2017-09-01-11_44_43-roadworksorg-live-and-planned-traffic-disruptions

2017-09-01-11_42_43-roadworksorg-live-and-planned-traffic-disruptions


Information from Roadworks.org has proved correct, and more work continues by BT Openreach contractors to now connect “the shire” to the local exchange.

Here are some photographs of the recent works, I’ve noticed that they have been smashing clay “pots” or pipes to get into the current telephone cables.

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Ultra fast FIBRE Broadband is 20m away from our house! It’s now in the “Shire!”

Thursday, July 6th, 2017

wrong

I’m just going to have to correct the title of these previous posts, where I have used the term Superfast Broadband, because Superfast Broadband refers to the technology of what we call Fibre To The Cabinet (FTTC) in the street, and then the remaining broadband is supplied by a copper telephone line to the property. From the cabinet to the Exchange  your maximum download speed is approx 76MBps, but depending on the length of copper from your house to the cabinet in the street, will reduce your download speed, because of noise/crosstalk on the copper line.

Ultra fast FIBRE Broadband referred to as Fibre To The Premises/Property (FTTP) or Fibre To The Home (FTTH) is where the property is connected to the Exchange directly on FIBRE! Therefore the maximum speed is 1GBps, currently maximum packages are 330MBps download, and 50MBps upload.

It’s ULTRA FAST FIBRE broadband which is coming to the shire! Which at this current time only 3% of the population have FTTP, so if this is true, and we are due to get FTTP installations in the SHIRE!, I’m very happy!

On the 15th May 2017, I spotted that they had pulled the fibre through to the base of my telegraph pole.

My telegraph pole

My telegraph pole

Neighbours telegraph pole

Neighbours telegraph pole

A few weeks ago, (19 June) I noticed two crayon markings next to two BT manhole covers, a week later (26 June) the pavement outside my house has been dug up, and a new telephone duct has been laid between two BT manhole covers.

Information obtained from Roadworks.org, which is a website you can view to look at all roadworks in the UK, they have been logged and authorised with your local councils! This listed the original notice here, and indicated that this work was scheduled for late August – September 2017. So I’ve been speculating as to when this website, will change to accepting orders!

accepting-order

The great thing about Roadworks.org, if you a roadworks stalker, you can setup alerts to notify you of changes in a defined area, and an alert popped into my Inbox this morning… stated this work to add new telegraph poles is to start!

2017-07-06-13_36_50-roadworksorg-live-and-planned-traffic-disruptions

So will I be able to place my order for ULTRA FAST FIBRE broadband in August 2017 ?

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Superfast Broadband FIBRE is 400m away from our house! It’s now in the “Shire!”

Monday, May 15th, 2017

Superfast Broadband FIBRE is 400m away from our house!

2017-05-15-085631

I spotted the van even closer to the house this morning, approx 400m away now! The next junction box after this, is 20m from our house at the base of our telegraph pole!

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Andysworld! to get Superfast Broadband ? Possibly ?

Thursday, May 11th, 2017

If you don’t know, I live in a rural idle in Yorkshire which some have described as a “Shire out of Tolkien” where the hobbits live! (I’m actually a little larger than a hobbit, some would say much larger!)

Lovely as it is, it does suffer one draw back, currently I’m in the 10% of the population without what the Government calls “Superfast Broadband” – at best when the wind blows in the right direction I may get up to 3.5 Meg download speed, my telephone line is still connected to a telegraph pole, and my line length is approx 3.9km from the BT exchange, and that’s not as the crow flies, because the came runs in a junction at the side of the road.

So broadband speed is slow. Three years ago, I blogged when I “nerded or geeked out” – Welcome to Cabinet World! – Andy stalks more cabs! , checking out the local cabs in the area, that had been upgraded, and fibre enabled, and hoped one day that poor old Cabinet Number 10 would be upgraded. All the other cabs in the local town have been upgraded but this sad cabinet has been left, and this is where my telephone line terminates!

3 years later, it remains the same!

BUT…

Whilst out walking in early March 2017, the noisy bugger I am, spotted a notice on a BT Telegraph pole, near my house

Openreach Notice on Telegraph pole

Openreach Notice on Telegraph pole

When I first noticed it, I didn’t read it fully, and thought maybe they were replacing the old telegraph poles because they had rotten, but then I visited When Can I get Fibre ? which I have visited many times, last year!

When Can I get Fibre ?

When Can I get Fibre ?

I could not believe it now states FTTP – Fibre to the Premises, so excited, and I’m sure a little bit of wee came out, I rushed back to the notice on the telegraph pole, and read in more detail…

“to install fibre broadband pole/s” – I’ve read articles, by Openreach, which have suggested they are now using poles and not holes!

Early April, I spotted Openreach Engineers near my Cab 10, but it had not changed, and more recently I’ve been seeing them getting closer to my house.

img_1338I asked this engineer, how far they were going and he said he didn’t know! This was 24 April 2017. Approx 1800 metres from my house.

Today, they are just round the corner! (750 metres away!)  You can see the reel of fibre on the rear of the lorry.

2017-05-11-085133

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Frozen @EclipseInternet Broadband!

Friday, February 3rd, 2012

Everything else freezes around here, so why not my Broadband “wires”

It sounds like food you have with chips and peas!

Again, I’m having broadband issues, for the last four days, during the twilight hours, under clear Yorkshire Wolds skies, the temperature has been falling to -7 degrees C, and I have a theory this causes a fault on the line! It just seems very coincidental, if we get a cold spell or very hot spell my Broadband has issues. Recently spoke to Eclipse Internet, that states that four other Eclipse Internet users on the Exchange also had issues this week, at the same time, so it was suggested it was BT, playing with their Exchange!

I’ll think I’ll be opening that call again Eclipse Internet!

Here are some lovely test results

SpeedTest.net Broadband Speed Test Results

SpeedTest.net Broadband Speed Test Results

Thinkbroad Broadband Speed Test Results

Thinkbroad Broadband Speed Test Results

Router Connection Statistics

Router Connection Statistics

Whilst the rest of the world, surfs the Net, at lighting speeds of 8, 20, 40 and 100MBps, I can only dream!

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Andysworld! Advent Calendar – Dec 4 – Is your Broadband Slow and unreliable?

Sunday, December 4th, 2011

If your telephone master socket, looks like this example, it could be the problem!

UK BT Master Telephone Socket

UK BT Master Telephone Socket with many extensions

try removing a few extensions, and just connect your Broadband Modem or Router!

(this example provided by a friend, it did have more extensions, that have since been removed! The ADSL Broadband Router light did not light )

My BT Master Socket - New ADSL faceplate

My BT Master Socket - New ADSL faceplate

If you fancy some DIY, you can change the BT Master NTE5/5A faceplate, for a modern NTE2005, (ADSL faceplate) which has a connection for telephone and Broadband USB Modem or Router, and then there is no need to use an additional broadband filter. NTE2005 (ADSL faceplate) are readily available on eBay and Online.

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Broadband DOWN!

Monday, January 10th, 2011

My broadband failed today at 12.10, whilst I was trying to obtain car insurance, after a call to Eclipse Internet, and trying six routers, and a Thomson ST330 USB ADSL Modem, my broadband is kind of faulty somehwere between here and Eclipse Internet.

(Thomson is now called Technicolor, so if you after Thomson drivers for your USB modems, head this way).

So I’m operating on my Huawei E585 via 3G.

Speedtest on 3G Wireless Broadband

Speedtest on 3G Wireless Broadband

Ping Test on 3G

Ping Test on 3G

Okay, the latency is slow, but that’s to be expected, but the download speed is the same as I paying Eclipse Internet. Three (3) costs me £5 a month, unlimited, Eclispe Internet £24.99 (well it will be 2.5% more now!).

Might need to think about a fixed 3G Router for the future!

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Broadband throughput starts to increase…and I don’t know why…

Friday, November 5th, 2010

I noticed this evening when downloading an iso, that my download speed was in excess of 350kB/sec, this is double than normal! So I then decided to start running some tests again, and this is what I found.

SpeedTest.net 4 Nov 2010

SpeedTest.net 4 Nov 2010

Ping Test 4 Nov 2010

Ping Test 4 Nov 2010

ThinkBroadband Speed Test 4 Nov 2010

ThinkBroadband Speed Test 4 Nov 2010

Now whats odd about this, is my line 3.7km away from the Exchange, until now has only been able to support speeds from 1.6 – 2.0Mbps, and more recently 1.6Mbps, which has been okay, despite the fact that I pay for an upto 8Mbps service! (but that’s the price you pay to live in a CountryHouse). But it’s almost doubled to 2.9Mbps!

But what’s even weirder, is only a few days ago, I got a nice email from Eclispe Sales, trying to entice me onto a 12 month contract the email reads:-

“We are always trying to improve the products and services that we offer our customers and I would like a chance to discuss your current package with you.

By changing to our Business Bronze package, you could reduce your monthly cost to £19.95+vat and increase your fair usage allowance from 40gb to 50gb. You may also see an improvement in throughput speeds.

Please let us know when you would like us to call you. Alternatively, if having read this, you would like to change to the Business Bronze package, please reply to this email and we will change this for you.

Please note that if you switch to a new service, you will start a new 12 month contract. If you then decided to leave before the end of this 12 month period, an early termination fee would apply.”

I said we would consider this, but at only a £1 reduction a month, and quite happy now with existing service (despite over 20 months of issues, which touch wood have now been resolved!), We are reulctant to change, especially into a 12month contract!

It’s just odd now, our throughput starts to increase….

Until next time, when it’s back to normal!

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