One of the first RUclips videos I've seen with working tel co side equipment too. I just found this channel today and I'm absolutely consumed with it 😂
So... this is what we in Australia call FTTN I think, Fibre to the Node (green box) which then puts the VDSL from fibre onto a number of customer analogue phone lines for the last 800m or so. FTTC here is Fibre to the Curb, which means fibre runs along the street and has an individual node for each customer to their old analogue line, so the analogue run is only 10m or so, which makes for much better performance. I'm presently on FTTN because that's the only option here right now. I'm at the fringe of it in fact, if we were two houses further down, we'd only be offered wireless broadband. The raw linespeed varies a bit, but around 70mbps seems to be about all it can handle here, at shorter distances, speeds over 100mbps might be possible, but it's a lottery and depends how good the copper is. Phones are all VOIP now, the analogue phone network has been closed down in toto. So you either need a standalone IP phone or your analogue phone runs directly from the Phone port on the modem inside. I've got a 50mbps plan, most you can get is 100mbps but I can't have that because I'm too far from the node. They're promising at some point to expand the fibre network (which would be good because the copper lines are 80 years old and not exactly great for data). What comes into the house is a standard 2 pair phone line, minus the analogue phone service. Only one pair (blue/white) is live. Red/black is not (normally) used. What's bad is that if the power goes off, you lose both internet and your house phone as the FTTN cabinets don't have any form of battery backup. NBN (National Broadband Network) that are the national provider via Telco retailers, is something of a political football, the original concept was all fibre to the premises, but there was change of government and they stupidly decided to go with this mishmash because it was (they thought) going to be 'good enough' and supposedly cheaper. Now it's exploded in their faces and they are now admitting that the FTTN concept is flawed because a lot of copper is just too old to handle decent data rates AND there's still a lot of people in urban areas who are being forced onto wireless broadband which has its own issues. There is also a satellite option for isolated areas, (which there is a LOT of in Australia) where there is no phone service at all, or possibly just 3g/4g. 5G is just being rolled out in major cities. Going to be a while. The sat service is maximum of 50mbps, data is expensive and gets throttled if you go over the cap. There's a 650ms lag because of the geosync satellite hop. It seems we might see SpaceX's Starlink service here sometime this year, which I suspect will see a whole swarm of people ditch their NBN satellite or Wireless Broadband, probably even some FTTN users might go Starlink because of better speed. (Musk is guaranteeing 100mbps plus which would be better than what I've got). NBN is reacting by lowering the price of business satellite to try and compete, but it's not fixing the basic problems inherent in it (Far more people on Satellite than the government planned for because the phone network just doesn't cover enough of the country) The NBN is a national disgrace and should have gone ahead in the original fibre everywhere form, but it wasn't politically acceptable for the incoming government to allow something the enemy thought up, so they 'revised and improved' it by trashing the Fibre network concept and piggybacking the consumer end to extant analogue phone lines. This was clearly a HUGE mistake which they have now, very reluctantly admitted, but it's going to take a long time to remedy and the cost had blown out enormously even before then. For emergencies where the power is off, FTTN customers like me will lose both house phone and internet services (even if the exchange has power) and NBNs advice is 'keep a charged mobile handy' which is fine to a degree, however most of the 3G4G sites have only around 12 hours of battery backup, once that goes if the outage lasts long enough (last major one we had was 3 days a few years ago) you are reduced to UHF CB and/or smoke signals. We had no mobile service for about a week as the Telco's site we use didn't come back up when the power did and had to have the equipment replaced which took another few days. At the time, phones were still analogue, so they worked through out, but that's now dead and buried so any lengthy outage now will take out house phones and internet and leave you dependent on mobiles with around 12 hours or battery, unless you are with one provider (Telstra) who have a cell site at the exchange which has backup generators. Other providers (Optus et al) will be dead in the water after 12 hours or so of no power.
VDSL and VDSL2 use digital signals, no analogue signals. For the physical line it is equal what kind of signal use. Typical VDSL (or VDSL2) lines are 800 till 1000 meter, but with good lines are 1.6 km possible. With SDSL are 2 km possible. Do you have right, FTTC are fiber to the curb, FTTB are fiber to the building and FTTH are fiber to the home mean apartment. FTTN sounds that do you have smaller cabinets between customers and far curbs. But why do you not install own fiber line from neighbor or from the next curb?
@@OldLordSpeedy Digital yes, but still baseband so an RF type AC signal with digital modulation. Older phone lines like ours (some are 100 years old or close) don't work so well and at around 800m from the node I'm getting about 65-70mbps on a good day. FTTP is fibre to the premises, so apartment or much more so in Australia to the individual house (most of us don't live in apartment buildings but single storey individual houses on their own land like me.
@@geoffroberts1126 Typical digital subscription line (DSL) is really digital (see name), it not need or have some analogue signal. Please test it self if you not believe me - BTW: I learn all the different techniques in my job. Our telecom use 0.8 till 0.6 mm² copper cable in the history, 0.4 mm² only inside house. Your small line till 500m looks for copper-save cable. That is really bad. But inside home is FTTH - fiber to the home. This fiber is thick a hair, so that is it easy to change the copper to fiber inside the installation channels.
Thank you for this video. I'm soon starting my new role as an Openreach PIA Installs Auditor so this kind of background knowledge is really good to know!
I just found this channel today and I'm absolutely in love with it. I've been trying to figure out how to set up a network for a network of ski cabins that span almost 100 acres. We already have copper phone lines buried and I've been wanting to reuse them forever now currently no free WiFi at the cabins. If you keep uploading DSL videos I promise you'll always have a view 😂. Maybe a video on how to set one of these systems up start to finish??
PSTN entering the Cab (PCP, primary conection point) is called an 'E' side, 'E' standing for exchange, the line to customer premises are called 'D' side. When connecting a VDSL circuit, quite often the ADSL equipment in the exchange is still left in circuit, BT/Openreach always connect from 'E' to 'D' so the E side entering PCP connects to the 'D' side of the dslam and from there the 'E' side of the dslam goes to customer. All extensions need to be wired to the punch points on the NTE faceplate not the standard old NTE5 Back box. If you need to use modem in another room away from the termination point you can plug normal CAT5/6 RJ45 into the faceplate then into the modem. Blue crimps are commonly found in old joints on housing estates dating around 70's/80's when cable was burried directly in the ground and when alluminium was used extensively.
What is the name for these types of combiners used to inject the ADSL from the DSLAM into the telephone pairs? I have had a look around and nothing comes up on google so I am wondering what there name is.
In this video they are just micro filters being used in reverse. Its not ideal but DOES work. The unit you want is a combiner and this is included in may DSLAMs
It depends. On our system we bridge to sip and go off down the fibre. BT in the UK break into the local loop which is why the cabinets are almost always next to the old cabinets the analog lines are patches in
Very interesting video! In the US you will basically never see anything Huawei. Our DSLAMs and power supplies are usually American companies but sometimes foreign like Alcatel-Lucent or Nokia.
All our Huawei kit is US in origin. Its just not available on the market in the UK, especially the pole mounted DSLAM, just about to import two from Oregon.
@@rtechlab6254 I see what you mean! US Companies like Calix and Adtran are pretty up to date actually. I am served by a Calix VDSL2 system called Calix C7
And here in Canada we have FTH fibre to home. 1.5 gigabit up/down line comes right into your home into a ONT then into your modem / router. From what I was told by the tech the fibre line itself can handle 10+gig for future capacity.
The rollout here is just starting. Expecting to do our first general FTTP here mid April. We have a few sites on specialist providers but this will be the first telco one. Done a couple with Telus in Calgary
Actually in the US maybe NYC the cable terminates at a cabinet outside the premises then goes to the router via either a coaxial cable like that used by SKY PLC (not the twin coaxial cable) or via Ethernet cable possibly CA5 or CAT6 but recently I noticed a few fibre installs where the fibre comes into the house via a optical socket then a optical cable with a connector on both ends one goes to the main socket the other goes to the router, the unit that is attached to the promises also has a possibility of a phone connection but these are options that you have to opt into when you have decided that you want broadband some people will just use a HUAWEI B331 Homehub and a HUAWEI B331 Antenna that attaches to the Homehub but will require a AT&T or other SIM
In the UK, the normal route is fibre into the premises then there seems to be two ways its done. Either into a fixed ONT in new builds which contains the "modem", battery and provides a POTS Phone line. This seems to be a short lived way of doing it as we don't see it often, mostly in 2019-2022 builds. Most other installs have a small ONT on the wall connected by fibre to the wall box on the outside of the property. The ONT only provides an ethernet jack and from there is normal PPOE via a modem of your/provider's choosing. Phones in North America are done a little differently and I've not really worked with them since contracting for Telus in *mumble*
The green FTTC box houses MOST of what is in this video. Exchange end, its mostly dealing with the returning fibre and backend management. Some exchanges still have ADSL DSLAMs and then all the phone wiring.
With sky. On FTTC. when we joined speeds were 32/9.5mbps after 4yrs our upload speed has slowly reduced to 6.2mbps. Its become a issue for me called up but they say open reach sees that as adequate service as refuse to take any action to resolve our upstream reduction. Its like a third slower. No FTTP service available in the area. Signed up to Starlink as that looks promising till BT can overhaul this dated system of using inadequate phonelines. Shame really I dont need loads of bandwidth.
Thanks for the video really informative helps me understand why I can’t get FTTC. I unfortunately live in a house with an EO line. I am resigned to never getting FTTC and probably missing out on FTTP. On the bright side I do live in an 5G area so it’s not all bad
Thanks, really well laid out presentation, good point re dont go behind or inside the BT socket. Like the layout and test bench / I did not know re the older sockets / additional wires etc (had that cause some issues on site visits), top tip. Keep up the channel / defo recommend this.
I prefer to explain to end clients / the BT socket remains the property of BT - so avoid doing anything with it, do the basic checks as you showed. If inside your house, keep any DIY folk away from the socket, avoid touching it or moving it. (Log a ticket with BT if you need it moving / ppl need broadband more than ever these days), if you're nice and lucky, the person at BT might do it / or you always ask. Plus outside maintain any external bushes and trees etc outside your property, keep the line clear and free from any overhanging trees), had too many ppl drop a tree or big branch then cut the line, approx £250+VAT per line... including chinese laterns burning the line Best tip, if you ever see a comms person or BT engineer, always offer a cuppa and some biscuits, those folk are out in all weathers, #karma #payitforwards does not always work / though they appreciate it if you can.
Not designed to be played with is just a challenge to the internet to play with it :) OpenWRT can be flashed on a surprising amount of OEM routers, i know the first BT Home Hub could be, and i think the Sky and Virgin stuff is Rebadged Netgear
I KNEW it. I thought the POTS phone service originates at the DSLAM. But nope looks like they are still getting POTS from the wiring center. This is being phased out in the states though. Some AT&T setups though don’t even get analog phone in. Their UVerse service is DSL only & then they provide a gateway with phone jacks for voip. Not sure why it’s separate
It CAN originate at the DSLAM. This unit has provision for this with the right cards and we use Mediatrix FXOs with the Versa DSLAMs to do this. In the UK Pots is coming to an end now too
I don't know if this still applies today but I remember att did both fiber to the node and to the houes but in both place was converted to dsl for there uvers. It been 6 years for me messing around with att stuff where I ues to work.
I’d be interested in what exactly the combiner is that ‘mixes’ the dsl and analogue phone together. Is it another microfilter in reverse, or is it just a 3 way junction?
Its essentially a microfilter working in reverse and that's exactly what we do. The ones I used in this clip didn't work that well and I've only just gotten round into looking at them, turns out they aren't really microfilters at all, just garbage :)
One further thing you can wire in the ring circuit on an extension on the later NTE5 dockets as they have an inductor which reduces the bell circuit from acting as an antenna
When initially rolling out FTTC, BT said even when full, the cabinet would support full 80mbps to each line capable of handling that. That's proved to be bollocks. Ive been on FTTC for 8 years. For most of that, I achieved a peak of 56mbps but hovered around 52-53mbps. Since BT installed another larger cabinet next to the one my line goes into, Ive had endless disconnection problems. Connections used to last over 200 days but since the new cabinet install, my max connection has been 74 days and frequently less than 30 days. My speed has also dropped to 48mbps. Contact with BT has been laughable. The guys in India said reboot your homehub 6 every 30 days. Frequently it doesnt stay connected for 30 days. A 'technician' came and fitted the latest BT master socket similar to the one in this vid. After instal, he promptly plugged it in and out a few times causing the DSLAM to reduce my speed to 44mbps! It's recovered slightly to 46mbps but Im now experiencing dropped connections roughly every 7 days. Im fed up of explaining to BT by dropped connection, I dont me dropped wifi, Im talking connection by the HH6 to the cabinet \ exchange. It takes 5 or 6minutes to sync! Im on the phone to them again tomorrow!
Put in a complaint to Openreach CEO's office - it's painfully inept but *can* get to the bottom of it in my experience, unlike the service providers who are helpless/useless when it comes to infrastructure issues...
We have solved a lot of issues by binning the Homehub. Generally one of the TP Link Archer units will work significantly better but they aren't cheap. I'm not sure that's the issue here though. Your speed may have dropped simply because of capacity, although this shouldn't cause your drops it will impact overall speed. The later Homehubs do give some signal information which is worth checking from time to time but AFAIK they still give bugger all logging. If you can, take note of when the drops occur, there may be a common thread. We had a customer that lost his every Friday night, about the same time. Digging deeper we found a few people in that area did, all at the same time. A little more work and we found out that a radio ham would grab a drink and head down his shack about 7pm every Friday to chat to a friend, his set was wiping the local green cabinet out. A few filters added on his gear and all fixed. That said this is absolutely not your job and the CEOs office is worth a shot as already mentioned.
I have two of those Huawei modems feeding a dual-WAN pfSense router - the firmware is quite old (I think it the Kitz firmware) and I was interested to hear you mentioned a custom firmware - is this also Kitz or is there a newer firmware for these modems or something custom to yourselves?
It's a lightly modded version of the factory firmware, not the cut down BT firmware. It can easily be found online. We made some tweaks to restrictions on wan facing services
@@DAVIDGREGORYKERR I'm nothing to do with BT or OR. We have our first FTTP with BT going live in three weeks, we have Fttc in with Wessex Internet and Eclipse with other customers already for some time. They haven't left a lot of time to switch given how behind they ate.
I don’t think there’s ever going to be an occasion where I’d pay for BT to come and fit a newer master socket. It’s easier than wiring a UK mains plug.
So hypothetically, can a person place a DSLAM on the home pair line ? That is assuming that it can do so if there is another DSLAM unit at the exchange and the unit at your home can boost the line speed if you are far from the exchange.
You'd need to strip the existing VDSL signal off with a microfilter and modem, then pass the output of both back through the DSLAM with the DSLAM configured to allow the PPPOE from the modem to pass through OR deal with the PPOE at the modem and pass wan through. Given the pricetag here, pointless :) You *COULD* use a modem and FXO then feed the wan data AND SIP through to a media convertor and go with fibre for both. Cheaper, more flexible, choose the SFP and fibre right, more distance too.
@@rtechlab6254 Thanks for the reply and the video, much appreciated :) The latter option sounds viable, is it possible you have a video on both setups?
Single Order ADSL. The slow cousin of SOGEA (single order generic ethernet access) these are services that dont have an attached analog service, so the setup I use with the MA5616 could be considered SOGEA as I don't insert the POTS analog service anymore
I've looked into this. Initially G.Fast was going to be the magic bullet and after a trial of Vectoring it was put out to the technical press they were not going to do this, however as a couple of others have commented they do seem to be using it now. As an upgrade its just the line cards in the DSLAM that need swapping provided they didn't cheap out on the management cards so its a no brain upgrade,
Yeah the copper/aluminium voice cable was always the bottleneck, now they employee FTTP which is quite interesting. I find Openreach splicers very user friendly.
Dear oh dear. I’m glad I live in a virgin media cabled area. Thanks for the interesting vid. It makes me laugh that they moved the dslams further down the network into the cabs as a quick fix. Not much more they can do after that though is there?
yeah it is FTTP I have it but is is a passive optical network not an active optical network saying that have never had my speed drop bellow what i pay for always get 150mb constantly.
Virgin Media layout, Fibre from headend to hubsite, fibre from hubsite to main node. Main node feeds up to 11 different Cabs via 580 and 540 CATV, 540 CATV goes into Rf amplifier and from the amplifier goes a coax into CATV 4x4 tap banks, Customers drop cable screws into tap bank and sends RF signal down to property via RG6 or RG11 CATV depending on distance.
As for the telco side, VM are switching to something called VOC, Voice over cable, where the phone lines work off the back of the broadband, eliminating the telephone lines as they get damaged easily. But the old telco system used to be 100 twisted pair goes into seperate Mux channels, then jumper wire from mux channel into a cabinet channel, then from the cabinet jumper wire from cabinet channel into a krone strip where customers drop goes to property.
Openreach, not BT. BT does not come and do anything, Openreach is a legally separated part of BT plc and part of the agreement with Ofcom is not to be BT branded. BT provides retail and wholesale services, but the network belongs to Openreach and the company that turns up is Openreach. Calling them BT is outdated and misleading in the current world.
@@rtechlab6254 I know who is on the board, but I would suggest you're out of date, very little BT plc on the board now - it is mandated upon Openreach not to be - for example "And while we still agree our overall budget with the BT Group board, we determine our own priorities and spending." - and it is enforced. They're not allowed to call themselves "BT" or "BT Openreach" - and you should only be referring to them as "Openreach" too.
@@SquirreliciousMe agree Openreach are the crux of most problems - I've had my fair share of incompetence from them and put in a number of complaints to the CEO's office which has resolved some things at a practical level - it doesn't stop their so-called 'engineers' ditching jobs and appointments if they don't fancy it however. The public should know who the underlying issues lie with - not just their service provider. The old school BT monopoly mentality still runs deep unfortunately...
Interesting to see how the British do it over there. Over here in the US we don't have a "master socket" we have a Phone NID on the outside of the house, then run a phone line to inside jack(s) and there is never any master or slaves, they are just phone jacks regardless of where they are at. It also appears you use a proprietary phone connector over there, BS 6305, where as in the US we just use RJ11. The Jelly connectors are called butt splices over here. I think FTTC is a dumb term to be honest, as ADSL, ADSL2+ etc. can all be fed from a remote DSLAM called an RT (Remote Terminal) and is quite common in rural areas (the countryside as you would say it over there). These RT's are usually fed by fiber, but in the very early days of DSL could of utilized multiple T1 or T3 backhaul. I think we should stick to terminology that describes the actual Internet connection we have, the hand-off. Just say I have VDSL2+, or I have Cable, or FTTH. I hate when people say I'm on copper, well both DSL (regardless of technology) and Cable are both copper. CMTS units are usually fiber fed too, would you consider that FTTC? As a lot of these CMTS units have to be moved closer for DOSCIS 3.1 and now 4.0. No, it's mostly used for DSL terminology, but nonetheless I think it's just dumb. Most DSLAM's are fiber fed, same with CMTS, it's the distance from said DSLAM, the condition of the OSP copper and the line cards (and provisioning) in it that determines the speed. We already know everything after the handoff rides on fiber, it's redundant terminology. My DSLAM is fed with 10Gbps Fiber backhaul, but only offers ADSL2+ 10/896 profile as they haven't swapped out the line cards for VDSL2+. Would you call that FTTC? It technically is fiber to that cabinet lol, but who cares the handoff is what matters. Should we also start saying I have FTTT (Fiber to the Tower) as most cell towers are fiber backhauled, with the exception of very rural ones that are backhauled via microwave. I know you didn't invent the terminology, but that's just my little rant on terminology. In the US we mostly just say what it is, DSL, Cable or Fiber, but when we save Fiber we ALWAYS mean FTTH/FTTP. Unlike Virgin Media that calls Cable internet Fibre!
I've done work for Telus so I'm familiar :) The master socket doews the job of NID/NTE Butt splices are something else here, they used to be gel filled blue crimps that used a tool similar to the ubiquitous automotive crimps. FTTC was one in a long line of half assed fixed applied to our phone network. VDSL does have a distance advantage over VDSL and will manage more stable connections at the same speeds. The green cabs (RTs) are fed by Fibre here and that was the justification for (Fibre Broadband) and I agreee with you, Fibre should mean FTTP, not fiber to the cabinet (VDSL) or Fibre to the node (Whatever version of DOCSIS Virgin use)
In limited areas where g.fast is present. For general use after the trial in 2017 ended on "normal" vdsl it was decided to go no further except in very special circumstances as it offered no perceived benefit in the network vs cost of upgrading and pending Fttp. ECI cabs already in place do not support it, nor do the handful of Versas
@@Ymma58 Pity it wasn't used here. We're in a rural town in Devon with a large number of longer lines from the cabinet. I was the first person in the town to get FTTC and initially the speeds were quite good considering a 500m distance from cabinet. Now a few years later with lots of contention, I'm getting about half the original speeds, which for upload is particularly frustrating.
@@video99couk That will be most likely due to a cable fill (crosstalk) on a cable feeding your DP. Vectoring can help to eliminate some of the crosstalk due to this. I've seen lines achieving over full speed (90mb max rate) over 1km from the Huawei Vectored DSLAM.
FTTC speed is not based on how far you are from the exchange when your local green boxes have had fibre run to them. The clue is in the title of your video.
Blue crimps were used on aluminium cables and the external distribution points or DP's should all be screw type connectors not idc (as in the box conn 301 you are using. I believe BT is now removing all Huawei equipment from it's network as per government regulations. The company I currently work for use Nokia
Yup and price of Huawei spares has plummeted, good news for us. I don't think BT/OR know where half of this stuff is. I suspect the issue is documentation from POT would have been awful and there's still some of that kicking around. Working on a VOIP conversion on site at the moment that still has the jack style connectors in use!
@@rtechlab6254 by / openreach doesn't know where half its network is either as they had 50% more copper in Slough than they realised. VBT is a monster and is bad at tracking it's assets
BT made a huge mistake going this route rather than FTTH. 50-60mb is not fast compared to other countries and it seems this system will never be able to deliver over 100mpbs to a large amount of customers.
Wasn't possible at the time. Was a quick fix and a step to FTTP. Copper is now being phased out in most areas so large scale FTTP is on the way. At the time it was prohibively expensive and the technology not that well proven.
Some BT engineers are lemons! I had to spell out the problem to one that visited. As the phone line stop working when it rained, but the engineer kept saying it working now as it was not raining. Eventually one engineer realized the main-hole filling with water, and he unblocked the plug at the bottom of it. I might or might not of got the hose pipe out before he visited, as I had a felling that was the problem.
@@rtechlab6254 Yes true, it's only when things stop working we notice. When they work we take them for granted. But thanks to all those wonderfully engineers things normally just work.
The water should not affect your service if it does you have bigger problems. Either the cable is damaged or there is a leaking cable joint which the engineer should have dealt with.
@@keithwindow4435 Corrosion in the junction boxes (little round pillars about 3 feet high) is a big issue here. After we had constant drop outs, the NBN tech discovered a ball of salt and corrosion a centimetre around on one of the joints. He bought it to show me. Still had issues so the next tech disconnected the 'X pair' which was the analogue connection back to the exchange for the now dead POTS system, it was obsolete so he just took it off. That fixed it.
You are incorrect in how the DSLAM connects to the subscribers line. It depends on the cabinet type and the DSLAM will be situated a maximum of 100 m away from the existing green cabinet. I know this🎇🤪as I worked for BT for 25 years and still work as a fibre planner for a company in London. I understand that for simplicity you could not cover all the cabinet types but the set up you show is not the most common type
First RUclips video to properly explain the full system rather than just drawing diagrams.
One of the first RUclips videos I've seen with working tel co side equipment too. I just found this channel today and I'm absolutely consumed with it 😂
So... this is what we in Australia call FTTN I think, Fibre to the Node (green box) which then puts the VDSL from fibre onto a number of customer analogue phone lines for the last 800m or so.
FTTC here is Fibre to the Curb, which means fibre runs along the street and has an individual node for each customer to their old analogue line, so the analogue run is only 10m or so, which makes for much better performance. I'm presently on FTTN because that's the only option here right now. I'm at the fringe of it in fact, if we were two houses further down, we'd only be offered wireless broadband. The raw linespeed varies a bit, but around 70mbps seems to be about all it can handle here, at shorter distances, speeds over 100mbps might be possible, but it's a lottery and depends how good the copper is. Phones are all VOIP now, the analogue phone network has been closed down in toto. So you either need a standalone IP phone or your analogue phone runs directly from the Phone port on the modem inside. I've got a 50mbps plan, most you can get is 100mbps but I can't have that because I'm too far from the node. They're promising at some point to expand the fibre network (which would be good because the copper lines are 80 years old and not exactly great for data). What comes into the house is a standard 2 pair phone line, minus the analogue phone service. Only one pair (blue/white) is live. Red/black is not (normally) used. What's bad is that if the power goes off, you lose both internet and your house phone as the FTTN cabinets don't have any form of battery backup. NBN (National Broadband Network) that are the national provider via Telco retailers, is something of a political football, the original concept was all fibre to the premises, but there was change of government and they stupidly decided to go with this mishmash because it was (they thought) going to be 'good enough' and supposedly cheaper. Now it's exploded in their faces and they are now admitting that the FTTN concept is flawed because a lot of copper is just too old to handle decent data rates AND there's still a lot of people in urban areas who are being forced onto wireless broadband which has its own issues. There is also a satellite option for isolated areas, (which there is a LOT of in Australia) where there is no phone service at all, or possibly just 3g/4g. 5G is just being rolled out in major cities. Going to be a while. The sat service is maximum of 50mbps, data is expensive and gets throttled if you go over the cap. There's a 650ms lag because of the geosync satellite hop. It seems we might see SpaceX's Starlink service here sometime this year, which I suspect will see a whole swarm of people ditch their NBN satellite or Wireless Broadband, probably even some FTTN users might go Starlink because of better speed. (Musk is guaranteeing 100mbps plus which would be better than what I've got). NBN is reacting by lowering the price of business satellite to try and compete, but it's not fixing the basic problems inherent in it (Far more people on Satellite than the government planned for because the phone network just doesn't cover enough of the country) The NBN is a national disgrace and should have gone ahead in the original fibre everywhere form, but it wasn't politically acceptable for the incoming government to allow something the enemy thought up, so they 'revised and improved' it by trashing the Fibre network concept and piggybacking the consumer end to extant analogue phone lines. This was clearly a HUGE mistake which they have now, very reluctantly admitted, but it's going to take a long time to remedy and the cost had blown out enormously even before then. For emergencies where the power is off, FTTN customers like me will lose both house phone and internet services (even if the exchange has power) and NBNs advice is 'keep a charged mobile handy' which is fine to a degree, however most of the 3G4G sites have only around 12 hours of battery backup, once that goes if the outage lasts long enough (last major one we had was 3 days a few years ago) you are reduced to UHF CB and/or smoke signals. We had no mobile service for about a week as the Telco's site we use didn't come back up when the power did and had to have the equipment replaced which took another few days. At the time, phones were still analogue, so they worked through out, but that's now dead and buried so any lengthy outage now will take out house phones and internet and leave you dependent on mobiles with around 12 hours or battery, unless you are with one provider (Telstra) who have a cell site at the exchange which has backup generators. Other providers (Optus et al) will be dead in the water after 12 hours or so of no power.
VDSL and VDSL2 use digital signals, no analogue signals. For the physical line it is equal what kind of signal use. Typical VDSL (or VDSL2) lines are 800 till 1000 meter, but with good lines are 1.6 km possible. With SDSL are 2 km possible.
Do you have right, FTTC are fiber to the curb, FTTB are fiber to the building and FTTH are fiber to the home mean apartment. FTTN sounds that do you have smaller cabinets between customers and far curbs. But why do you not install own fiber line from neighbor or from the next curb?
@@OldLordSpeedy Digital yes, but still baseband so an RF type AC signal with digital modulation. Older phone lines like ours (some are 100 years old or close) don't work so well and at around 800m from the node I'm getting about 65-70mbps on a good day. FTTP is fibre to the premises, so apartment or much more so in Australia to the individual house (most of us don't live in apartment buildings but single storey individual houses on their own land like me.
@@geoffroberts1126 Typical digital subscription line (DSL) is really digital (see name), it not need or have some analogue signal. Please test it self if you not believe me - BTW: I learn all the different techniques in my job.
Our telecom use 0.8 till 0.6 mm² copper cable in the history, 0.4 mm² only inside house. Your small line till 500m looks for copper-save cable. That is really bad.
But inside home is FTTH - fiber to the home. This fiber is thick a hair, so that is it easy to change the copper to fiber inside the installation channels.
@@OldLordSpeedy All DSL, whist it transmits digital information it does so using analog (RF) signalling.
I've always wondered what all those wires were doing, thanks.
Thank you for this video. I'm soon starting my new role as an Openreach PIA Installs Auditor so this kind of background knowledge is really good to know!
Thank you
I just found this channel today and I'm absolutely in love with it. I've been trying to figure out how to set up a network for a network of ski cabins that span almost 100 acres. We already have copper phone lines buried and I've been wanting to reuse them forever now currently no free WiFi at the cabins. If you keep uploading DSL videos I promise you'll always have a view 😂. Maybe a video on how to set one of these systems up start to finish??
It's perfect for that. I'll see what I can do
@@rtechlab6254 much appreciated!!
PSTN entering the Cab (PCP, primary conection point) is called an 'E' side, 'E' standing for exchange, the line to customer premises are called 'D' side. When connecting a VDSL circuit, quite often the ADSL equipment in the exchange is still left in circuit, BT/Openreach always connect from 'E' to 'D' so the E side entering PCP connects to the 'D' side of the dslam and from there the 'E' side of the dslam goes to customer. All extensions need to be wired to the punch points on the NTE faceplate not the standard old NTE5 Back box. If you need to use modem in another room away from the termination point you can plug normal CAT5/6 RJ45 into the faceplate then into the modem. Blue crimps are commonly found in old joints on housing estates dating around 70's/80's when cable was burried directly in the ground and when alluminium was used extensively.
Thanks, been looking for this info for a while. Not found it all together before.
What is the name for these types of combiners used to inject the ADSL from the DSLAM into the telephone pairs? I have had a look around and nothing comes up on google so I am wondering what there name is.
In this video they are just micro filters being used in reverse. Its not ideal but DOES work. The unit you want is a combiner and this is included in may DSLAMs
How are voice calls routed to the exchange with FTTC. Does the voice go over fibre from the cab to the exchange?
It depends. On our system we bridge to sip and go off down the fibre. BT in the UK break into the local loop which is why the cabinets are almost always next to the old cabinets the analog lines are patches in
Very interesting video! In the US you will basically never see anything Huawei. Our DSLAMs and power supplies are usually American companies but sometimes foreign like Alcatel-Lucent or Nokia.
All our Huawei kit is US in origin. Its just not available on the market in the UK, especially the pole mounted DSLAM, just about to import two from Oregon.
@@rtechlab6254 interesting! They must be importing them from China and reselling. Either way they aren’t really in production use here.
@@hardwiired The trouble is, and the reason we got in this mess, I no one kept up with them tech wise. ECI, Nokia etc are now all playing catch up
@@rtechlab6254 I see what you mean! US Companies like Calix and Adtran are pretty up to date actually. I am served by a Calix VDSL2 system called Calix C7
And here in Canada we have FTH fibre to home. 1.5 gigabit up/down line comes right into your home into a ONT then into your modem / router. From what I was told by the tech the fibre line itself can handle 10+gig for future capacity.
The rollout here is just starting. Expecting to do our first general FTTP here mid April. We have a few sites on specialist providers but this will be the first telco one. Done a couple with Telus in Calgary
Actually in the US maybe NYC the cable terminates at a cabinet outside the premises then goes to the router via either a coaxial cable like that used by SKY PLC (not the twin coaxial cable) or via Ethernet cable possibly CA5 or CAT6 but recently I noticed a few fibre installs where the fibre comes into the house via a optical socket then a optical cable with a connector on both ends one goes to the main socket the other goes to the router, the unit that is attached to the promises also has a possibility of a phone connection but these are options that you have to opt into when you have decided that you want broadband some people will just use a HUAWEI B331 Homehub and a HUAWEI B331 Antenna that attaches to the Homehub but will require a AT&T or other SIM
In the UK, the normal route is fibre into the premises then there seems to be two ways its done. Either into a fixed ONT in new builds which contains the "modem", battery and provides a POTS Phone line. This seems to be a short lived way of doing it as we don't see it often, mostly in 2019-2022 builds. Most other installs have a small ONT on the wall connected by fibre to the wall box on the outside of the property. The ONT only provides an ethernet jack and from there is normal PPOE via a modem of your/provider's choosing.
Phones in North America are done a little differently and I've not really worked with them since contracting for Telus in *mumble*
Nice, been looking for a video like this for ages, thanks. I would like to know more about what's in the Green box and the Exchange
The green FTTC box houses MOST of what is in this video. Exchange end, its mostly dealing with the returning fibre and backend management. Some exchanges still have ADSL DSLAMs and then all the phone wiring.
I've still got a BT Home hub 5 flashed with OpenWRT. Solid stuff.
We have a few dozen of them. Not bad kit without the original firmware
With sky. On FTTC. when we joined speeds were 32/9.5mbps after 4yrs our upload speed has slowly reduced to 6.2mbps. Its become a issue for me called up but they say open reach sees that as adequate service as refuse to take any action to resolve our upstream reduction. Its like a third slower. No FTTP service available in the area. Signed up to Starlink as that looks promising till BT can overhaul this dated system of using inadequate phonelines. Shame really I dont need loads of bandwidth.
@@sonyp180 get off Sky and join someone like Andrew's and Arnold who'll push open reach and sort problems like that. Not all ISPs are equal.
Thanks for the video really informative helps me understand why I can’t get FTTC. I unfortunately live in a house with an EO line. I am resigned to never getting FTTC and probably missing out on FTTP. On the bright side I do live in an 5G area so it’s not all bad
Thanks, really well laid out presentation, good point re dont go behind or inside the BT socket.
Like the layout and test bench / I did not know re the older sockets / additional wires etc (had that cause some issues on site visits), top tip.
Keep up the channel / defo recommend this.
Thank you Andrew. Ring wire is a rarely mentioned but common source of issues
I prefer to explain to end clients / the BT socket remains the property of BT - so avoid doing anything with it, do the basic checks as you showed.
If inside your house, keep any DIY folk away from the socket, avoid touching it or moving it. (Log a ticket with BT if you need it moving / ppl need broadband more than ever these days), if you're nice and lucky, the person at BT might do it / or you always ask.
Plus outside maintain any external bushes and trees etc outside your property, keep the line clear and free from any overhanging trees), had too many ppl drop a tree or big branch then cut the line, approx £250+VAT per line... including chinese laterns burning the line
Best tip, if you ever see a comms person or BT engineer, always offer a cuppa and some biscuits, those folk are out in all weathers, #karma #payitforwards does not always work / though they appreciate it if you can.
Not designed to be played with is just a challenge to the internet to play with it :) OpenWRT can be flashed on a surprising amount of OEM routers, i know the first BT Home Hub could be, and i think the Sky and Virgin stuff is Rebadged Netgear
Virgin use Arris for their latest Modem/Router unit
We have an Arris CMTS just in to play with.
Brings back memories with some of the equipment, used to work in as the supplier for CPE, HK612 and Call center G/S, LCGC, LS and DID
:( I’m still stuck on the bare bones 10-15 mbps down and 0.5 up trying to play games on it is a nightmare.
There's way too many not spots still
Eh how did you get your hands on that BT66 the SSFP, the SSFP and socket as well as the openreach router?
All easily available.
This was hugely helpful thanks.
I KNEW it. I thought the POTS phone service originates at the DSLAM. But nope looks like they are still getting POTS from the wiring center. This is being phased out in the states though. Some AT&T setups though don’t even get analog phone in. Their UVerse service is DSL only & then they provide a gateway with phone jacks for voip. Not sure why it’s separate
It CAN originate at the DSLAM. This unit has provision for this with the right cards and we use Mediatrix FXOs with the Versa DSLAMs to do this. In the UK Pots is coming to an end now too
I don't know if this still applies today but I remember att did both fiber to the node and to the houes but in both place was converted to dsl for there uvers. It been 6 years for me messing around with att stuff where I ues to work.
I’d be interested in what exactly the combiner is that ‘mixes’ the dsl and analogue phone together. Is it another microfilter in reverse, or is it just a 3 way junction?
Its essentially a microfilter working in reverse and that's exactly what we do. The ones I used in this clip didn't work that well and I've only just gotten round into looking at them, turns out they aren't really microfilters at all, just garbage :)
One further thing you can wire in the ring circuit on an extension on the later NTE5 dockets as they have an inductor which reduces the bell circuit from acting as an antenna
You can and it is indeed there but not actually needed unless you like your retro phones ;)
When initially rolling out FTTC, BT said even when full, the cabinet would support full 80mbps to each line capable of handling that. That's proved to be bollocks.
Ive been on FTTC for 8 years. For most of that, I achieved a peak of 56mbps but hovered around 52-53mbps. Since BT installed another larger cabinet next to the one my line goes into, Ive had endless disconnection problems. Connections used to last over 200 days but since the new cabinet install, my max connection has been 74 days and frequently less than 30 days. My speed has also dropped to 48mbps.
Contact with BT has been laughable. The guys in India said reboot your homehub 6 every 30 days. Frequently it doesnt stay connected for 30 days. A 'technician' came and fitted the latest BT master socket similar to the one in this vid. After instal, he promptly plugged it in and out a few times causing the DSLAM to reduce my speed to 44mbps!
It's recovered slightly to 46mbps but Im now experiencing dropped connections roughly every 7 days. Im fed up of explaining to BT by dropped connection, I dont me dropped wifi, Im talking connection by the HH6 to the cabinet \ exchange. It takes 5 or 6minutes to sync! Im on the phone to them again tomorrow!
Put in a complaint to Openreach CEO's office - it's painfully inept but *can* get to the bottom of it in my experience, unlike the service providers who are helpless/useless when it comes to infrastructure issues...
don't let them get away with it.....bother them till they fix it tbh
We have solved a lot of issues by binning the Homehub. Generally one of the TP Link Archer units will work significantly better but they aren't cheap. I'm not sure that's the issue here though. Your speed may have dropped simply because of capacity, although this shouldn't cause your drops it will impact overall speed. The later Homehubs do give some signal information which is worth checking from time to time but AFAIK they still give bugger all logging.
If you can, take note of when the drops occur, there may be a common thread. We had a customer that lost his every Friday night, about the same time. Digging deeper we found a few people in that area did, all at the same time. A little more work and we found out that a radio ham would grab a drink and head down his shack about 7pm every Friday to chat to a friend, his set was wiping the local green cabinet out. A few filters added on his gear and all fixed.
That said this is absolutely not your job and the CEOs office is worth a shot as already mentioned.
Why do you not write living place or country into the first line? Looks like U.K. without colonies nor commonwealth, right?
I don't want, or need to identify where I am.
I have two of those Huawei modems feeding a dual-WAN pfSense router - the firmware is quite old (I think it the Kitz firmware) and I was interested to hear you mentioned a custom firmware - is this also Kitz or is there a newer firmware for these modems or something custom to yourselves?
It's a lightly modded version of the factory firmware, not the cut down BT firmware. It can easily be found online. We made some tweaks to restrictions on wan facing services
Love these video streams made by an Openreach operative, just wondering when the cables are being ripped out to be replaced with FTTH.
Not sure what you mean
@@rtechlab6254 Just wondering when the copper telephone lines are being ripped out to be replaced with the FTTH?
@@DAVIDGREGORYKERR I'm nothing to do with BT or OR. We have our first FTTP with BT going live in three weeks, we have Fttc in with Wessex Internet and Eclipse with other customers already for some time. They haven't left a lot of time to switch given how behind they ate.
@@rtechlab6254 Sorry No problem.
I don’t think there’s ever going to be an occasion where I’d pay for BT to come and fit a newer master socket.
It’s easier than wiring a UK mains plug.
Legally you can't do that though. The three pin plug won't be long either.
So hypothetically, can a person place a DSLAM on the home pair line ?
That is assuming that it can do so if there is another DSLAM unit at the exchange and the unit at your home can boost the line speed if you are far from the exchange.
You'd need to strip the existing VDSL signal off with a microfilter and modem, then pass the output of both back through the DSLAM with the DSLAM configured to allow the PPPOE from the modem to pass through OR deal with the PPOE at the modem and pass wan through. Given the pricetag here, pointless :) You *COULD* use a modem and FXO then feed the wan data AND SIP through to a media convertor and go with fibre for both. Cheaper, more flexible, choose the SFP and fibre right, more distance too.
@@rtechlab6254 Thanks for the reply and the video, much appreciated :)
The latter option sounds viable, is it possible you have a video on both setups?
What is SOADSL?
Single Order ADSL. The slow cousin of SOGEA (single order generic ethernet access) these are services that dont have an attached analog service, so the setup I use with the MA5616 could be considered SOGEA as I don't insert the POTS analog service anymore
Are those Krone blocks?
They are indeed, genuine ones.
Great video can you explain what happens at the exchange level ?
In what respect?
how to distribution network for the vdsl
We will be doing this on site next weekend, and it will be filmed
Nice video! Openreach do have vectoring enabled on many Huawei cabinets now :)
I've looked into this. Initially G.Fast was going to be the magic bullet and after a trial of Vectoring it was put out to the technical press they were not going to do this, however as a couple of others have commented they do seem to be using it now. As an upgrade its just the line cards in the DSLAM that need swapping provided they didn't cheap out on the management cards so its a no brain upgrade,
thanks for explaining this
Hopefully it makes a little more sense now :)
Do you know how many homes a single green box can serve i believe my cabinet is eci not huwai
@@rtechlab6254 and subbed sir
Yeah the copper/aluminium voice cable was always the bottleneck, now they employee FTTP which is quite interesting. I find Openreach splicers very user friendly.
Great video and explainer. Thank you.👍
Dear oh dear. I’m glad I live in a virgin media cabled area. Thanks for the interesting vid. It makes me laugh that they moved the dslams further down the network into the cabs as a quick fix. Not much more they can do after that though is there?
The Virgin system isn't much better and in some respects is worse. OR don't normally leave the roadside cabinets open to the elements for months :)
currently I have fttc I put my postcode into openreach and it says that they have plans to add fttp soon yay
It does seem they are finally picking up the pace
@@rtechlab6254 we wouldn't be so behind on a global scale if it wasn't for Margaret Thatcher🤦♂️🤦♂️
yeah it is FTTP I have it but is is a passive optical network not an active optical network saying that have never had my speed drop bellow what i pay for always get 150mb constantly.
luckily enough to live in a gigfast area - dug the whole place up and fibre into your house. 500mbs for £35 - up to 1gig if you want it
Also cabs don't come as 1 whole until it all comes from separate suppliers
HUWAWEI and ECI both sell complete solutions including the cabinet. Both are used in the UK widely.
I now have FTTH and have had for at least 6-8 months.
Subscribing. Been looking for a channel like this for ages! Can you do a video on Virgin media please?
Oddly we were having this chat a while ago. I may be able to do something but DOCSIS kit is neither cheap or easy to get hold of.
CMTS headend on the way from Germany...
@@rtechlab6254 we need a discord server to geekout in 🤣
Virgin Media layout, Fibre from headend to hubsite, fibre from hubsite to main node. Main node feeds up to 11 different Cabs via 580 and 540 CATV, 540 CATV goes into Rf amplifier and from the amplifier goes a coax into CATV 4x4 tap banks, Customers drop cable screws into tap bank and sends RF signal down to property via RG6 or RG11 CATV depending on distance.
As for the telco side, VM are switching to something called VOC, Voice over cable, where the phone lines work off the back of the broadband, eliminating the telephone lines as they get damaged easily. But the old telco system used to be 100 twisted pair goes into seperate Mux channels, then jumper wire from mux channel into a cabinet channel, then from the cabinet jumper wire from cabinet channel into a krone strip where customers drop goes to property.
Rip to openreach modem gone but never forgotten
So technically you have made your own FTTC line
Yup, exactly that.
Openreach, not BT. BT does not come and do anything, Openreach is a legally separated part of BT plc and part of the agreement with Ofcom is not to be BT branded. BT provides retail and wholesale services, but the network belongs to Openreach and the company that turns up is Openreach. Calling them BT is outdated and misleading in the current world.
Maybe look at who sits on who's board. Longer explanation, the public don't know this nor do they care. Thank you for pointing it out though :)
@@rtechlab6254 I know who is on the board, but I would suggest you're out of date, very little BT plc on the board now - it is mandated upon Openreach not to be - for example "And while we still agree our overall budget with the BT Group board, we determine our own priorities and spending." - and it is enforced. They're not allowed to call themselves "BT" or "BT Openreach" - and you should only be referring to them as "Openreach" too.
@@SquirreliciousMe agree Openreach are the crux of most problems - I've had my fair share of incompetence from them and put in a number of complaints to the CEO's office which has resolved some things at a practical level - it doesn't stop their so-called 'engineers' ditching jobs and appointments if they don't fancy it however. The public should know who the underlying issues lie with - not just their service provider. The old school BT monopoly mentality still runs deep unfortunately...
Interesting to see how the British do it over there. Over here in the US we don't have a "master socket" we have a Phone NID on the outside of the house, then run a phone line to inside jack(s) and there is never any master or slaves, they are just phone jacks regardless of where they are at. It also appears you use a proprietary phone connector over there, BS 6305, where as in the US we just use RJ11. The Jelly connectors are called butt splices over here. I think FTTC is a dumb term to be honest, as ADSL, ADSL2+ etc. can all be fed from a remote DSLAM called an RT (Remote Terminal) and is quite common in rural areas (the countryside as you would say it over there). These RT's are usually fed by fiber, but in the very early days of DSL could of utilized multiple T1 or T3 backhaul. I think we should stick to terminology that describes the actual Internet connection we have, the hand-off. Just say I have VDSL2+, or I have Cable, or FTTH. I hate when people say I'm on copper, well both DSL (regardless of technology) and Cable are both copper. CMTS units are usually fiber fed too, would you consider that FTTC? As a lot of these CMTS units have to be moved closer for DOSCIS 3.1 and now 4.0. No, it's mostly used for DSL terminology, but nonetheless I think it's just dumb. Most DSLAM's are fiber fed, same with CMTS, it's the distance from said DSLAM, the condition of the OSP copper and the line cards (and provisioning) in it that determines the speed. We already know everything after the handoff rides on fiber, it's redundant terminology. My DSLAM is fed with 10Gbps Fiber backhaul, but only offers ADSL2+ 10/896 profile as they haven't swapped out the line cards for VDSL2+. Would you call that FTTC? It technically is fiber to that cabinet lol, but who cares the handoff is what matters. Should we also start saying I have FTTT (Fiber to the Tower) as most cell towers are fiber backhauled, with the exception of very rural ones that are backhauled via microwave. I know you didn't invent the terminology, but that's just my little rant on terminology. In the US we mostly just say what it is, DSL, Cable or Fiber, but when we save Fiber we ALWAYS mean FTTH/FTTP. Unlike Virgin Media that calls Cable internet Fibre!
I've done work for Telus so I'm familiar :) The master socket doews the job of NID/NTE Butt splices are something else here, they used to be gel filled blue crimps that used a tool similar to the ubiquitous automotive crimps. FTTC was one in a long line of half assed fixed applied to our phone network. VDSL does have a distance advantage over VDSL and will manage more stable connections at the same speeds. The green cabs (RTs) are fed by Fibre here and that was the justification for (Fibre Broadband) and I agreee with you, Fibre should mean FTTP, not fiber to the cabinet (VDSL) or Fibre to the node (Whatever version of DOCSIS Virgin use)
Incorrect we do use vectored cabs
In limited areas where g.fast is present. For general use after the trial in 2017 ended on "normal" vdsl it was decided to go no further except in very special circumstances as it offered no perceived benefit in the network vs cost of upgrading and pending Fttp. ECI cabs already in place do not support it, nor do the handful of Versas
There's fair number of Huawei vectored cabs usually where large number of longer lines are present usually in rural areas.
@@Ymma58 Pity it wasn't used here. We're in a rural town in Devon with a large number of longer lines from the cabinet. I was the first person in the town to get FTTC and initially the speeds were quite good considering a 500m distance from cabinet. Now a few years later with lots of contention, I'm getting about half the original speeds, which for upload is particularly frustrating.
@@video99couk That will be most likely due to a cable fill (crosstalk) on a cable feeding your DP. Vectoring can help to eliminate some of the crosstalk due to this. I've seen lines achieving over full speed (90mb max rate) over 1km from the Huawei Vectored DSLAM.
@@rtechlab6254 no even where g.fast isn't present, vectoring is widely used on lines connected to Huawei cabinets :)
FTTC speed is not based on how far you are from the exchange when your local green boxes have had fibre run to them.
The clue is in the title of your video.
I'll go back and re watch but it's distance from the DSLAM in the cabinet. I may have miss spoken but trust me, I know this.
@@rtechlab6254 Actually, I must apologise, I mis-heard you.
It's just at 1:40 your description is a bit jumbled
Not allowed to wire to here.... yet everyone does.
Yup, and any issues you cause will cost you, BT make that clear if you call them
Huawei may have packets reporting back to HQ
Again, there is no proof of this at all unlike Cisco. A well designed and managed network would also spot this
Excellent, thanks
Blue crimps were used on aluminium cables and the external distribution points or DP's should all be screw type connectors not idc (as in the box conn 301 you are using. I believe BT is now removing all Huawei equipment from it's network as per government regulations. The company I currently work for use Nokia
Yup and price of Huawei spares has plummeted, good news for us. I don't think BT/OR know where half of this stuff is. I suspect the issue is documentation from POT would have been awful and there's still some of that kicking around. Working on a VOIP conversion on site at the moment that still has the jack style connectors in use!
@@rtechlab6254 by / openreach doesn't know where half its network is either as they had 50% more copper in Slough than they realised. VBT is a monster and is bad at tracking it's assets
@@rtechlab6254 bored didn't know where half of its copper network was when I joined in 1987 and they still are bad at keeping track of it even now.
BT made a huge mistake going this route rather than FTTH. 50-60mb is not fast compared to other countries and it seems this system will never be able to deliver over 100mpbs to a large amount of customers.
Wasn't possible at the time. Was a quick fix and a step to FTTP. Copper is now being phased out in most areas so large scale FTTP is on the way. At the time it was prohibively expensive and the technology not that well proven.
Some BT engineers are lemons! I had to spell out the problem to one that visited. As the phone line stop working when it rained, but the engineer kept saying it working now as it was not raining. Eventually one engineer realized the main-hole filling with water, and he unblocked the plug at the bottom of it. I might or might not of got the hose pipe out before he visited, as I had a felling that was the problem.
Some of the engineers are superstars too, same with any large organisation. In Calgary we had a "tame" Shaw engineer
@@rtechlab6254 Yes true, it's only when things stop working we notice. When they work we take them for granted. But thanks to all those wonderfully engineers things normally just work.
The water should not affect your service if it does you have bigger problems. Either the cable is damaged or there is a leaking cable joint which the engineer should have dealt with.
@@keithwindow4435 Corrosion in the junction boxes (little round pillars about 3 feet high) is a big issue here. After we had constant drop outs, the NBN tech discovered a ball of salt and corrosion a centimetre around on one of the joints. He bought it to show me. Still had issues so the next tech disconnected the 'X pair' which was the analogue connection back to the exchange for the now dead POTS system, it was obsolete so he just took it off. That fixed it.
You are incorrect in how the DSLAM connects to the subscribers line. It depends on the cabinet type and the DSLAM will be situated a maximum of 100 m away from the existing green cabinet. I know this🎇🤪as I worked for BT for 25 years and still work as a fibre planner for a company in London. I understand that for simplicity you could not cover all the cabinet types but the set up you show is not the most common type
kitz.co.uk/adsl/fttc.htm
I hope pice of Huawei hardware you glt there is high quality cause their phones are trash
My P30 Pro is an awesome phone ta. Never confuse consumer and pro gear though, often its two different companies behind one name
It's not 3 and 5 its 2 and 7 matey
It’s 2 and 5
My mistake. I am numerically dyslexic so thank you.
kc Comm FTTH here muahahahaha
HUAWEI a Chinese own Company - Australian Government Banned the use of anything made by HUAWEI.
And yet no shred of evidence has been offered anywhere
- pretty damned sure you can still buy a retail Huawei cellphones 'off the shelf' in Aus
@@pete3897 anywhere other than the US have them. Love my P30
@@pete3897
The Australian Government Banned HUAWEI infrastructure use by Telcos, but end users can still buy and use HUAWEI mobile phones .