Kitz Forum

Broadband Related => Broadband Technology => Topic started by: Bowdon on July 07, 2017, 11:39:38 AM

Title: The use of dual cables.
Post by: Bowdon on July 07, 2017, 11:39:38 AM
I was talking to an OR engineer today and the subject of future technologies came up.

He was mentioning about how in Hull they are using dual cabling which has both copper and fibre parts. I think its KCOM who run the network in Hull?

He was saying that every time a customer calls them out they replace the drop wire (is that the wire that goes to the pole?) with this dual cable with future full fibre in mind.

Apparently BT tried this a few years ago but decided it would be too expensive. I'm just wondering how a smaller company with a less ability to absorb expense as managed to 'future-proof' their network, yet BT/OR say its too expensive?
Title: Re: The use of dual cables.
Post by: Chrysalis on July 07, 2017, 12:27:35 PM
its down to how each company manages their finances, BT tend to be very adverse to spending money.
Title: Re: The use of dual cables.
Post by: Black Sheep on July 07, 2017, 12:43:47 PM
Never, ever heard of BT trialling 'Dual cable'. never even heard of such a product being available. That doesn't mean there wasn't a trial somewhere within the UK though, it's just we would usually be informed of such things ????

Regarding utilising such cable in everyday practice ............ there's a world of difference between having a presence in a city with a population of 0.25 million, and having a presence in a country with a population of 65 million. Just a small thing most people overlook when BT bashing.

Who knows what the take up of fibre BB products will be ?? Judging from the various straw polls we've had on here ..... not bl00dy many ??. 





 
Title: Re: The use of dual cables.
Post by: Bowdon on July 07, 2017, 01:44:15 PM
I'm not sure of the name of the product. The dual cable name was what he said when describing it.

I'm not BT bashing, I was asking a question. In fact since the Openreach section was partially seperated from BT the people in there now seem to be pro-Fibre, and we've seen an increase in OR willing to install fibre to the home/property.

I've heard the same message from a couple of OR engineers, that they don't understand why when doing maintenance on the network that fibre isnt installed too. This engineer was saying how things are done differently in Hull. At the moment he says when faults are appearing on the copper lines OR are just replacing it with more copper.

I think its difficult to say how much people would pay for a full speed working connection because there is so much overlap and price difference for similar products from different ISP's. Even some adsl products still provide a better speed than some fibre hybrid products.

The line rental that people pay should be ring-fenced purely for network upgrades, maintenance and staff, and all ISP's should be forced to either hand over a percentage of the money in a deal with OR or find some other way of re-investing it back in to the system.

And if there is any bashing I tend to bash VM  ;D mainly because they could do so much better... and I say that not to put them down. But to encourage them to do more. If VM was a consistant, reliable service more people would sign up. At the moment I could order up to 300Mb down from them. I'm right in VM's area for the cable. But because of the inconsistant reports I am reading its not worth jumping. It would also help VM if they give a projected actual speed a customer could get before people order it. Now imagine if those actual speeds we were getting from VM was at least a 100Mb+ constant connection with good ping, I think a lot of people would be considering them. Also I suspect BT/OR would be installing dual cables all over the place  ;)
Title: Re: The use of dual cables.
Post by: Black Sheep on July 07, 2017, 04:16:10 PM
Bowdon, Bowdon ................. calm down mate, I never said you were BT bashing.
Title: Re: The use of dual cables.
Post by: Bowdon on July 07, 2017, 04:26:14 PM
Oh ok, I was just on a little general rant  ;D
Title: Re: The use of dual cables.
Post by: Chrysalis on July 07, 2017, 05:49:05 PM
basically the idea is if you paying for labour anyway, opening ducts etc., you may as well install the new stuff ready for future use, this happens in some other countries, but isnt widely adopted here.  Another example is if say the water company digs up the road, then the telco can take advantage and do their work at same time.
Title: Re: The use of dual cables.
Post by: j0hn on July 07, 2017, 06:14:52 PM
Sounds like that engineer has been playing Chinese whispers. KCom aren't doing that at all. It's an extremely inefficient way to roll out fibre. Sounds great, every time there's a fault with copper just replace it with fibre, but it doesn't work. It would leave the network extremely patchy, with random streets, parts of streets, individual properties etc, with fibre in the ducts connected to nothing.

KCom are quite aggressively replacing the copper on a large planned operation. There's no installing of dual copper/fibre cable when there's a copper fault. They'll repair/replace the copper, with copper. At some point in the near future they would be back to replace the lot in 1 go, it's much cheaper/easier.

The recent introduction of connectorised fibre will eventually make incremental fibre replacements like above easier. However it still requires much more man power than just the local engineer who's coming to fix a copper fault. They don't all drive around with duct clearing and cable pulling tools.

http://www.ispreview.co.uk/index.php/2017/06/kcom-hull-uk-ponders-first-switch-off-copper-phone-lines.html
Title: Re: The use of dual cables.
Post by: renluop on July 07, 2017, 10:53:01 PM
"Connectorised", what a jargonatic neologism! can you explain, please?
Title: Re: The use of dual cables.
Post by: KIAB on July 07, 2017, 10:56:59 PM
"Connectorised", what a jargonatic neologism! can you explain, please?

Google it. :)
Title: Re: The use of dual cables.
Post by: Dray on July 07, 2017, 10:57:37 PM
Here's a video that explains https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4IU3SAc7kYo
Title: Re: The use of dual cables.
Post by: j0hn on July 08, 2017, 03:40:46 AM
"Connectorised", what a jargonatic neologism! can you explain, please?
fibre with plugs, no time/labour consuming splicing required.
The video Dray posted explains it perfectly.
Title: Re: The use of dual cables.
Post by: renluop on July 08, 2017, 09:07:20 AM
Yep, I had guessed that it had something to to with plugs, but for me guessing is a dangerous game, too many stick wrong ends. :)

I see the advantage in time saved etc aka costs. but are there downsides in not having a continuous connection exchange to premises?
Title: Re: The use of dual cables.
Post by: licquorice on July 08, 2017, 11:32:17 AM
The insertion loss of optical connectors is negligble. All transmission kit within exchanges are interconnected with optical connectors.
Title: Re: The use of dual cables.
Post by: Bowdon on July 08, 2017, 09:31:55 PM
The recent introduction of connectorised fibre will eventually make incremental fibre replacements like above easier. However it still requires much more man power than just the local engineer who's coming to fix a copper fault. They don't all drive around with duct clearing and cable pulling tools.

I think he meant replacing the wire from the customers house to the pole (or where-ever it goes for non-pole people). The cable would only use the copper side. Then later on I assume when G.fast pods finally come out to the pole/manhole, they would in theory be able to just switch the connector from copper to fibre side and potentially get even more from G.fast.

I read the article you posted from ispreview site. Though it talks about pushing out fibre it doesnt give details of how this is being done so fast. I don't expect the the cables I'm talking about is playing a factor at this point though.
Title: Re: The use of dual cables.
Post by: j0hn on July 09, 2017, 01:24:48 AM
I still think that OpenReach engineer was talking nonsense. I've never seen or heard of such a cable. I would be surprised if 1 existed. I can't think of any benefit of both copper/fibre being in the same cable. If they were going down this approach then they would install 2 separate cables at the same time. It has the same result, but at least the copper can be recovered.

Copper is very expensive. To have a bunch of your defunct copper lines stuck in the active fibre feed cable is an odd and probably expensive strategy.

When replacing a damaged copper drop cable I see no real benefit installing a fibre cable with it.
When they eventually upgrade the area to FTTP they still have to replace the other 15 or so drop cables on that telegraph pole.

Cables and connectors also change, and a year later they may no longer be using that method to deliver fibre. e.g the connectorised vs spliced fibre.
Title: Re: The use of dual cables.
Post by: tbailey2 on July 09, 2017, 08:11:35 AM
This could be it?
opticalCON DUO Cable - Neutrik (http://www.neutrik.com/en/data/opticalcon/opticalcon-duo-cable/)

www.neutrik.com › ... › opticalCON › opticalCON ADVANCED › opticalCON DUOThe opticalCON DUO cable connector accommodates a standard optical LC-Duplex ...

Assembled extra rugged hybrid cable with 2 multi-mode fibers and 4 x 0.75 mm2 copper conductors, GFK ... Cost effective fiber optic hybrid cable solution.
Title: Re: The use of dual cables.
Post by: Black Sheep on July 09, 2017, 09:54:13 AM
Well, well, well ............. after a bit of digging around, it seems that the dual-cable (Cu-Fibre) is being used on brownfield sites,  but only from the DP to the premises.
Title: Re: The use of dual cables.
Post by: Bowdon on July 09, 2017, 10:39:15 AM
Well, well, well ............. after a bit of digging around, it seems that the dual-cable (Cu-Fibre) is being used on brownfield sites,  but only from the DP to the premises.

That sounds like it! Good digging :)
Title: Re: The use of dual cables.
Post by: Chrysalis on July 09, 2017, 11:20:46 AM
ideally copper shouldnt be used at all, but with ofcom forcing openreach to keep it for the LLU providers, then this dual cable makes sense to use when work is been done on a DP.
Title: Re: The use of dual cables.
Post by: licquorice on July 09, 2017, 12:19:11 PM
I'm still trying to get my head around the practicalities of this. Surely the termination point of the drop wire at both ends will be in a physically different location for the optical fibre and the copper wire. Even if only slightly different, there will need to be a certain amount of 'slack' for either the copper or the fibre to enable it to be reterminated where and when changed from one to the other.
Title: Re: The use of dual cables.
Post by: Black Sheep on July 09, 2017, 01:25:42 PM
Never used it, so can't comment on its practicalities first-hand.

Doesn't VM use a dual-cable type set up with Cu and Co-ax muddled together ?? Or am I wrong with that  :-X
Title: Re: The use of dual cables.
Post by: Dray on July 09, 2017, 01:40:44 PM
Yes they do, I have some in the shed ;)
Title: Re: The use of dual cables.
Post by: j0hn on July 10, 2017, 03:55:23 AM
This could be it?
opticalCON DUO Cable - Neutrik (http://www.neutrik.com/en/data/opticalcon/opticalcon-duo-cable/)

www.neutrik.com › ... › opticalCON › opticalCON ADVANCED › opticalCON DUOThe opticalCON DUO cable connector accommodates a standard optical LC-Duplex ...

Assembled extra rugged hybrid cable with 2 multi-mode fibers and 4 x 0.75 mm2 copper conductors, GFK ... Cost effective fiber optic hybrid cable solution.
Nah, they aren't twisted pair. The 2 x 0.75mm copper is for powering CCTV systems or various other low powered remote devices.

Seems this company (https://www.leoni-telecom.com/en/products/hybrid-cables/) does such products to required spec upon request.
Title: Re: The use of dual cables.
Post by: niemand on July 10, 2017, 11:26:27 AM
Who knows what the take up of fibre BB products will be ?? Judging from the various straw polls we've had on here ..... not bl00dy many ??. 

Going by the numbers of those actually buying had BT skipped FTTC and gone straight to P it would have been well in excess of their plans and been at least 40%.

We will of course never know as one you release hybrid technologies is becomes a bit of a self-fulfilling prophecy. Uptake would have been very high here and in other places because existing ADSL was so poor, regardless of the alternative offered :)

I can say with confidence that the uptake of FTTP will likely be 100% given enough time.