FTTC query

Can any Openreach engineer tell me if the voice part of the signal to the
FTTC cabinet is over copper or fibre. This may sound a silly question but I
have had conflicting answers to the question and would like a definitive
answer TIA

Peter Crosland

Peter Crosland wrote:
> Can any Openreach engineer tell me if the voice part of the signal to the
> FTTC cabinet is over copper or fibre. This may sound a silly question but I
> have had conflicting answers to the question and would like a definitive
> answer TIA
>
> Peter Crosland
>
>
From house to cabinet = copper
from cabinet to exchange = copper

The DSLAM is installed in the cabinet, and it feeds the VDSL signal
along the copper wires to the house.

--
Graham J

Peter Crosland wrote:
> Can any Openreach engineer tell me if the voice part of the signal to the
> FTTC cabinet is over copper or fibre. This may sound a silly question but I
> have had conflicting answers to the question and would like a definitive
> answer TIA
>
> Peter Crosland
>
>
Do you mean from the exchange, or from the customer premises?

It would seem a bit silly to maintain pairs from the exchange to the
cabinet rather than muxing them over the fibre...mind you, silliness is
rife.

I assume the cabinet to premises is good old copper pairs though with
phones on the baseband.

Oh I found something. Yes, its silliness all right

http://www.btwebworld.com/sinet/STIN495v1p0.pdf

"The Street DSLAM is served with a fibre back to the exchange to carry
the Broadband signals. (The telephone exchange at which the Broadband
service is handed over to BTW is not necessarily the same exchange
providing telephony services to the End User.). The Street DSLAM is
connected to the Street Cabinet using tie pair cables. VDSL 2 is used to
carry the Broadband over the copper pair from the Street Cabinet to the
End Users’ premises. See the diagram below. "

(actually there is no diagram below. There is one above: ed)

"The Public Switched Telephony Service (PSTN) is unaffected by this new
technology and continues to be supplied over the copper pair between the
Exchange and End Users’s premises."

The key thing seems to be that they may decide to string fibre from a
completely different exchange to the one that feeds the voice.

Yet another instance of BT failing to bite the bullet and go all VOIP..

which seems relatively insane really.

"Graham J" <graham@invalid> wrote in message
news:4e54f10b$0$2528$(E-Mail Removed)...
> Peter Crosland wrote:
>> Can any Openreach engineer tell me if the voice part of the signal to the
>> FTTC cabinet is over copper or fibre. This may sound a silly question but
>> I
>> have had conflicting answers to the question and would like a definitive
>> answer TIA
>>
>> Peter Crosland
>>
>>
> From house to cabinet = copper
> from cabinet to exchange = copper
>
> The DSLAM is installed in the cabinet, and it feeds the VDSL signal along
> the copper wires to the house.


Thanks.

Peter Crosland

Peter Crosland wrote:

> Can any Openreach engineer tell me if the voice part of the signal to the
> FTTC cabinet is over copper or fibre. This may sound a silly question but I
> have had conflicting answers to the question and would like a definitive
> answer TIA

I can't claim to be definitive, but i'll give you 500:1 that the voice
is copper all the way from the exchange, ...

In article <(E-Mail Removed) >,
(E-Mail Removed) says...
>
> Can any Openreach engineer tell me if the voice part of the signal to the
> FTTC cabinet is over copper or fibre. This may sound a silly question but I
> have had conflicting answers to the question and would like a definitive
> answer TIA
>
> Peter Crosland

Voice telephony continues to work the same way it always has done, ie,
copper pair from exchange to cab and copper pair from cab to premises.
Broadband is provided as fibre from exchange to new fibre cab containing
DSLAM, copper pair from DSLAM jumpered to existing copper pair in
existing cab.

In message <j32rr5$i4e$(E-Mail Removed)>, The Natural Philosopher
<(E-Mail Removed)> writes
>Peter Crosland wrote:
>> Can any Openreach engineer tell me if the voice part of the signal to
>>the FTTC cabinet is over copper or fibre. This may sound a silly
>>question but I have had conflicting answers to the question and would
>>like a definitive answer TIA
>> Peter Crosland
>Do you mean from the exchange, or from the customer premises?
>
>It would seem a bit silly to maintain pairs from the exchange to the
>cabinet rather than muxing them over the fibre...mind you, silliness is
>rife.
>
>I assume the cabinet to premises is good old copper pairs though with
>phones on the baseband.
>
>Oh I found something. Yes, its silliness all right
>
>http://www.btwebworld.com/sinet/STIN495v1p0.pdf
>
>"The Street DSLAM is served with a fibre back to the exchange to carry
>the Broadband signals. (The telephone exchange at which the Broadband
>service is handed over to BTW is not necessarily the same exchange
>providing telephony services to the End User.). The Street DSLAM is
>connected to the Street Cabinet using tie pair cables. VDSL 2 is used
>to carry the Broadband over the copper pair from the Street Cabinet to
>the End Users’ premises. See the diagram below. "
>
>(actually there is no diagram below. There is one above: ed)
>
>"The Public Switched Telephony Service (PSTN) is unaffected by this new
>technology and continues to be supplied over the copper pair between
>the Exchange and End Users’s premises."
>
>The key thing seems to be that they may decide to string fibre from a
>completely different exchange to the one that feeds the voice.
>
>Yet another instance of BT failing to bite the bullet and go all VOIP..
>
>which seems relatively insane really.
>
>
>
>
The relative degree of insanity depends on your other
priorities/constraints.

If you want (have to?) to maintain voice services (for emergency use) in
the event of power outages, then under a fibre scheme for voice the FTTC
cabs would need biggish batteries and even the capability to be
generator supplied.

If you presume that most people do not run their router off a UPS, then
you can (reasonably safely) assume that allowing the fibre cab to go
down in a power outage will not be a big deal - and hence make the
roll-out a lot cheaper.

Interestingly OFCOM has a current consultation document at

<http://stakeholders.ofcom.org.uk/bin...perfast-broadb
and/summary/battery_condoc.pdf>

requesting comments on the idea that FTTP installations should have the
requirements for battery backup reduced from four hours to one hour in
the interest of roll out cost.

I wonder who is going to be responsible for the long term maintenance
and end of life exchange of all those batteries?

In the US Verizon's FiOS product provides voice (but not Voip) for 8
hours in the event of power outages, but it makes the battery the
subscribers property/problem (one year warranty on the lead acid battery
- then if you need to replace it its US$46.00 to buy and you do it
yourself.)

http://www22.verizon.com/residential...al+support/get
ting+started/questionsone/121498.htm
--
Invalid

"The Natural Philosopher" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:j32rr5$i4e$(E-Mail Removed)...
> Peter Crosland wrote:
>> Can any Openreach engineer tell me if the voice part of the signal to the
>> FTTC cabinet is over copper or fibre. This may sound a silly question but
>> I have had conflicting answers to the question and would like a
>> definitive answer TIA
>>
>> Peter Crosland
> Do you mean from the exchange, or from the customer premises?
>
> It would seem a bit silly to maintain pairs from the exchange to the
> cabinet rather than muxing them over the fibre...mind you, silliness is
> rife.

But you'd need so much more equipment in the cabinet.

And the work needed when people switched their broadband between FTTC and
normal would be much much more.


> I assume the cabinet to premises is good old copper pairs though with
> phones on the baseband.
>
> Oh I found something. Yes, its silliness all right
>
> http://www.btwebworld.com/sinet/STIN495v1p0.pdf
>
> "The Street DSLAM is served with a fibre back to the exchange to carry the
> Broadband signals. (The telephone exchange at which the Broadband service
> is handed over to BTW is not necessarily the same exchange
> providing telephony services to the End User.). The Street DSLAM is
> connected to the Street Cabinet using tie pair cables. VDSL 2 is used to
> carry the Broadband over the copper pair from the Street Cabinet to the
> End Users' premises. See the diagram below. "
>
> (actually there is no diagram below. There is one above: ed)
>
> "The Public Switched Telephony Service (PSTN) is unaffected by this new
> technology and continues to be supplied over the copper pair between the
> Exchange and End Users's premises."
>
> The key thing seems to be that they may decide to string fibre from a
> completely different exchange to the one that feeds the voice.
>
> Yet another instance of BT failing to bite the bullet and go all VOIP..
>
> which seems relatively insane really.

It seems like a brilliantly simple way of slowly rolling out faster
broadband to me.

--

Brian Gregory. (In the UK)
(E-Mail Removed)
To email me remove the letter vee.

On Wed, 24 Aug 2011 16:37:45 +0100, Invalid wrote:

> [snip]

> The relative degree of insanity depends on your other
> priorities/constraints.
>
> If you want (have to?) to maintain voice services (for emergency use) in
> the event of power outages, then under a fibre scheme for voice the FTTC
> cabs would need biggish batteries and even the capability to be
> generator supplied.
>
> If you presume that most people do not run their router off a UPS, then
> you can (reasonably safely) assume that allowing the fibre cab to go
> down in a power outage will not be a big deal - and hence make the
> roll-out a lot cheaper.
>
> Interestingly OFCOM has a current consultation document at
>
> <http://stakeholders.ofcom.org.uk/bin...ons/superfast-
broadb
> and/summary/battery_condoc.pdf>
>
> requesting comments on the idea that FTTP installations should have the
> requirements for battery backup reduced from four hours to one hour in
> the interest of roll out cost.
>
> I wonder who is going to be responsible for the long term maintenance
> and end of life exchange of all those batteries?
>
> In the US Verizon's FiOS product provides voice (but not Voip) for 8
> hours in the event of power outages, but it makes the battery the
> subscribers property/problem (one year warranty on the lead acid battery
> - then if you need to replace it its US$46.00 to buy and you do it
> yourself.)
>
> http://www22.verizon.com/residential...neral+support/
get
> ting+started/questionsone/121498.htm

I've been wondering about this for some years. As I see it:

The ability of landline phones to work without customer premises power is
an incidental feature of the common-battery system of phone lines that
must now be a century or so old. When this system was devised, I doubt
that the designers even considered this as a requirement. Rather, there
was the high cost/unavailability of devices that could have used customer
premises power and the fact that quite a lot of potential customers
didn't have an electric supply of any kind.

If we were starting from scratch now, I doubt that the designers would
introduce significant additional cost, complexity and possible other
safety issues merely so the phones would work without customer power.

After all, many people only have cordless phones that stop working when
the lights go out. They also have mobile phones that, most of the time,
are a better bet in an emergency. Signal permitting, you can use your
mobile from anywhere in the building, e.g. from a room you're trapped in
by a fire. There are no wires to burn through. Intruders can't stop you
dialling 999 by cutting a wire or putting an extension phone off-hook.

A pure fibre system is certainly safer when it comes to lightning strikes
while shorted batteries are a potential cause of fires. These two factors
alone balance out some cases where someone needed to and could have made
an emergency call over a landline during a power failure and couldn't
have used a mobile instead. Then there's the whole area of cost-benefit
analysis...

The issue is probably only that the ambulance chasers will be out looking
for the few people who can claim that they suffered a loss because they
couldn't make a landline call.


--
Steve Hayes, South Wales, UK -- remove colours from address

"Brian Gregory [UK]" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message news:(E-Mail Removed) ...
> "The Natural Philosopher" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message news:j32rr5$i4e$(E-Mail Removed)...
>> Peter Crosland wrote:
>>> Can any Openreach engineer tell me if the voice part of the signal to the FTTC cabinet is over copper or fibre. This may sound a
>>> silly question but I have had conflicting answers to the question and would like a definitive answer TIA
>>>
>>> Peter Crosland
>> Do you mean from the exchange, or from the customer premises?
>>
>> It would seem a bit silly to maintain pairs from the exchange to the cabinet rather than muxing them over the fibre...mind you,
>> silliness is rife.
>
> But you'd need so much more equipment in the cabinet.
>
> And the work needed when people switched their broadband between FTTC and normal would be much much more.
>
>
>> I assume the cabinet to premises is good old copper pairs though with phones on the baseband.
>>
>> Oh I found something. Yes, its silliness all right
>>
>> http://www.btwebworld.com/sinet/STIN495v1p0.pdf
>>
>> "The Street DSLAM is served with a fibre back to the exchange to carry the Broadband signals. (The telephone exchange at which
>> the Broadband service is handed over to BTW is not necessarily the same exchange
>> providing telephony services to the End User.). The Street DSLAM is connected to the Street Cabinet using tie pair cables. VDSL 2
>> is used to carry the Broadband over the copper pair from the Street Cabinet to the End Users' premises. See the diagram below. "
>>
>> (actually there is no diagram below. There is one above: ed)
>>
>> "The Public Switched Telephony Service (PSTN) is unaffected by this new technology and continues to be supplied over the copper
>> pair between the Exchange and End Users's premises."
>>
>> The key thing seems to be that they may decide to string fibre from a completely different exchange to the one that feeds the
>> voice.
>>
>> Yet another instance of BT failing to bite the bullet and go all VOIP..
>>
>> which seems relatively insane really.
>
> It seems like a brilliantly simple way of slowly rolling out faster broadband to me.
>

OK, a good argument has been made for not MUXing the voice lines over the fibre
but that doesn't mean that they need the extravagance of an exchange pair per sub
as several FTTC customers could have their voice MUXed and powered over a single copper exchange side pair.
providing room is available for the DACS hardware in the cabinet.

--
Graham.

%Profound_observation%