[BBC News]Virgin Media to trial broadband over telegraph poles

trekkypj

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Virgin Media to trial broadband over telegraph poles
Thursday, 11 March 2010


Virgin Media has started trials to deliver fibre-optic high-speed broadband over telegraph poles.

The firm believes it could be used to extend its reach to another one million homes in the UK, mainly in rural areas.

The trial will initially deliver 50 megabits per second (Mbps) broadband to the Berkshire village of Woolhampton.

The government has pledged to ensure that everyone in the country has access to 2Mbps broadband by 2012 and ultrafast speeds by 2017.

Neil Berkett, chief executive officer of Virgin Media, said the trial would allow the firm to "understand the possibilities of aerial deployment" that may provide a "new way to extend next generation broadband services".

Typically, fibre-optic cables are run through underground ducts. Some firms have also experimented with running cables through the sewer network.

Virgin's trial is an attempt to bring faster broadband to people who live beyond the reach of its current network.

The trials will run for six months.

The government has said it will make available £200m to extend broadband coverage to the 15% of UK homes - predominantly in rural areas - which do not receive broadband at 2Mbps.

Good idea.

Why aren't we doing this?

brian ireland

The ESB announced they were doing this years ago they said they would run fiber optic cables along side the power-lines. At the time they said they would install the system and someone else wold run it because telecommunication was not their business. Never happened..

Sponge Bob

Brian,

You are confusing the fibre the ESB installed years ago ...it is wrapped tightly on power cables and live for about 7 years now....with the Virgin plan which is to have fibre swinging loosely between poles and not wrapped tightly. Of course 2 monopolies with 2 different regulators own all the poles in Ireland and we all know who they are

Stretching fibre is a big no no , some modern fibre manufacturers claim to have dealt with this problem and the clipping and attaching element of the solution is being standardised by the IEEE . Then we gotta get the CER and ESB onside before a pricing mechanism for access can be sorted out. This requires standards.

It makes SENSE that if there is a standard for clipping fibre onto ESB poles then the clips should be attached as STANDARD where poles are being replaced. Making sense never gets you anywhere in Ireland, you gotta be seen to force the making of sense on those who should but do not see sense themselves I will see if I can get some IEEE bod to brief me on this.

The older wrap technology has been around since the 1990s. It is/has being codified as an IEEE standard

P1594 Standard for "Helically-Applied Fiber Optic Cable Systems (WRAP) for Use on Overhead Utility Lines" fiber optic cable that is helically wrapped around a conductor or another messenger on overhead power transmission lines.

The loose hanging stuff is a different standard, self supporting not wrapped. It is nearly standardised.

P1591.2 Standard All-Dielectric Self-Supporting (ADSS) Fiber Optic Cable" applies to clamps, brackets, fixtures and other hardware for self-supporting ADSS cables used in local or long-distance utility aerial applications.

However that P1591.2 standard has been around since at LEAST 2002 and is not yet final. That would be because the swayable fiber itself is recent. Some urgency will be visible now the 100 x 100 program has been launched in the USA.

God Bless Barack Obama eh

standard and current progress in link below

http://ieee-tpc.org/ieee_presents/Presentations_Orlando/WG2-6_Conductors/UpdateIEEEFibreOpticStandards%20_Alderton_Pon.pdf

Once we have a standard there are equipment makers out there, eg this smattering

http://www.afltele.com/products/fiber_optic_cable/adss_hardware/

http://www.schy.com.cn/

http://www.docstoc.com/docs/27668507/ADSS-FIBER-OPTIC-CABLE

bk

Verizon in the US has been doing this for a few years now with their FTTH FiOS service and have had great success.

It is pretty cheap to do, just $650 per home (including all costs, termination gear, installation, etc.) and they even do it in areas with weather much worse then ours (areas with lots of Snow).

There really could be great opportunity here for the ESB, either to become an FTTH ISP themselves or by leasing use of their poles to the likes of UPC.

Really interesting blog post with pictures of a Verizon FiOS install here:
http://www.bricklin.com/fiosinstall.htm

Note that blog is from back in 2005, they have greatly simplified the whole process now.

Sponge Bob

Firstly do remember that we got an advanced codec like MPEG4 for our Digital TV Rollout because Ireland was 10 years behind every other country and technology had moved on.

It will always be a salutary reminder of ongoing abject failure rather than a sucessful new technology rollout and no spoofing politican will ever make it otherwise.

bk wrote: »

Verizon in the US has been doing this for a few years now with their FTTH FiOS service and have had great success.

It is pretty cheap to do, just $650 per home (including all costs, termination gear, installation, etc.) and they even do it in areas with weather much worse then ours (areas with lots of Snow).

Yeah but its the wind that is problematic in the main. We should do somewhere like Belmullet first to test the gear. If it survives 2-3 years in Belmullet without disperal problems caused by cable stretch then it may be worth considering.

There really could be great opportunity here for the ESB, either to become an FTTH ISP themselves or by leasing use of their poles to the likes of UPC.

Sadly if you think that eircom are a dodgy infrastructure monopoly that runs rings around a pliant regulator in Comreg ....then you ain't seen nothing like what the ESB can do with the CER

It is vital that such a project is not exposed to the ESBs outrageous per our labour charge cost stack. To do so the best approach is to follow outsourced jobs like network renewals contracts where the labour costs are bearable and not let the ESB do it in house.

However for maintenance eircom truckrolls contracted in techs , singly , at about €15 an hour + transport. The ESB truckrolls them in 4s at around €70 an hour....EACH + transport.

This is an unbearable expense TBH Even having done that the other problem is that the ESB network is radial and the best topology for a national access network would clearly be a 1gbit or 10gbit PON ring network.....and most likely we would and should start with the latter given the painful hole scratching that passes for policy making in Ireland

bk

Sponge Bob wrote: »

It will always be a salutary reminder of ongoing abject failure rather than a sucessful new technology rollout and no spoofing politican will ever make it otherwise.

Sigh another bloody trial of mature tech?

Verizon are using it in Chicago and other areas with winds equal to us and have been doing so for at least 5 years now. So no trials necessary.

Anyway I'm talking about using this in places like Dublin and Cork city, where wind isn't such a big deal, not out in the wilds of the west coast.

I agree with what you are saying about the ESB.

My dream (will never happen) is that some private company will come along and do a deal with Dublin City Council to access their fibre network and ESB to make use of their poles to drive affordable fibre to the home.

Sponge Bob

bk wrote: »

My dream (will never happen) is that some private company will come along and do a deal with Dublin City Council to access their fibre network

This will happen, sooner rather than later. There is no good reason NOT to install universal 10GEPON technology in Greater Dublin and as every other capital city in Europe is getting an open access universal fibre network Dublin will also have one .....and by the end of this decade....even bloody Athens

However Ireland is not Dublin and Dublin is not Ireland

bk

Sponge Bob wrote: »

However Ireland is not Dublin and Dublin is not Ireland

Oh, I agree, but we have to start somewhere.

watty

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/03/23/bt_ofcom/

Share your poles!