Converting Cabinets to Fibre

Johnboy1951

Just thinking about what the future might hold for eir ....

It seems likely that at some time in the future eir will need to change their FTTC cabinets to be able to provide FTTH to their customers.

No doubt that would/will be a huge undertaking, and seems likely to me that it will need to be done piece-meal.

I expect 'difficult to convert' premises (problem with routing for example) will need to remain on copper while the easier premises could be done more quickly, once the process has started.
Would this not mean that a combination of technologies would need to be housed in the cabinets .... for both types of service?

Or would the intention be to bring a completely separate fibre service to all those premises, not necessarily through the cabinets?

So I am just pondering how eir might go about the process, even though it is likely way into the future if the copper services technology keep improving.

tsue921i8wljb3

Johnboy1951 wrote: »

Just thinking about what the future might hold for eir ....

It seems likely that at some time in the future eir will need to change their FTTC cabinets to be able to provide FTTH to their customers.

No doubt that would/will be a huge undertaking, and seems likely to me that it will need to be done piece-meal.

I expect 'difficult to convert' premises (problem with routing for example) will need to remain on copper while the easier premises could be done more quickly, once the process has started.
Would this not mean that a combination of technologies would need to be housed in the cabinets .... for both types of service?

Or would the intention be to bring a completely separate fibre service to all those premises, not necessarily through the cabinets?

So I am just pondering how eir might go about the process, even though it is likely way into the future if the copper services technology keep improving.

There is already fibre going to each cabinet from an central exchange so if they have been smart they would have installed excess capacity to enable an easier transition to FTTH. Splitters and DPs can be housed in access chambers that are already there for the copper. I suspect their biggest issues will be the path from the cabinet to the premises. In older estates the ducting may have collapsed. I believe SIRO have had lots of issues with this and have resorted to tacking the cable onto people's homes.

ED E

When FTTC is redundant they can just remove the cab and put a manhole in its place. No point putting OLTs in cabs when the exchange is there and:
A) has more resilient power
won't get crushed when limerick joy riders go for a spin
C) distance has no impact on speed

The high horse brigade

Also each fibre cab has 24 fibres (with only 4 being used for VDSL) which can each be spilt to up to 64 houses for FTTH

m99T

ED E wrote: »

won't get crushed when limerick joy riders go for a spin

my sides

Marlow

OpenEir already stopped rolling out copper plant. It's only existing copper networks that are rolled out VDSL.

Any new estates are FTTH from day 1.

/M

Johnboy1951

Marlow wrote: »

OpenEir already stopped rolling out copper plant. It's only existing copper networks that are rolled out VDSL.

Any new estates are FTTH from day 1.

/M

So how will they deal with the existing copper connections when eventually graduating everyone to FTTH?

Marlow

Johnboy1951 wrote: »

So how will they deal with the existing copper connections when eventually graduating everyone to FTTH?

I don't think they have nor want to think that far yet. It's costly.

/M

westyIrl

Marlow wrote: »

I don't think they have nor want to think that far yet. It's costly.

/M

I often wonder (somewhat ignorantly) which part of it is costly. i.e. if a copper pair (or multiple core) duct wire has to be replaced to a premises; given that copper isn't all that cheap these days, is fiber really that more expensive than copper per meter?

Of course I am assuming labour and other things are somewhat negligible in a replacement context. I know a lot of copper lines don't need to be replaced for a long time yet.

Jim

Marlow

westyIrl wrote: »

I often wonder (somewhat ignorantly) which part of it is costly. i.e. if a copper pair (or multiple core) duct wire has to be replaced to a premises; given that copper isn't all that cheap these days, is fiber really that more expensive than copper per meter?

Of course I am assuming labour and other things are somewhat negligible in a replacement context. I know a lot of copper lines don't need to be replaced for a long time yet.

The costly bits are labour and repairing all the blocked and collapsed ducts, broken or ivy covered poles etc.

Also licenses needed for every work on public land and along roads.

The fiber or copper is not the costly part. Nor is the gear to drive the fiber.

/M