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[Mark07]

Morning all,

Happy new year, long time no post!

The cab I'm on is apparently full, it's one of the smallest ECI ones. I'm wondering how they usually add more capacity to these, as surely they're too small to add more line cards to, would they look to build a second small ECI or replace it with a larger huawei?

The fact it's full would explain the 20Meg I've lost due to cross talk since I was the first on the cab, I suspect it's only going to get worse as more cards are added (if this is what they do)

Thanks in advance!

[WWWombat]

All the cab types have the ability for more cards to be added to them, and don't usually start life with a full complement. BT ought to add cards just before the existing ones fill up - but don't always make it in time ... so the cab appears full for a while.

Likewise they only install 100 tie pairs between the FTTC cabinet and the PCP. Once those 100 are used, some more will need to be added, and the cab will appear full for a while.

The ECI and the smaller Huawei have room for 4 cards, while the larger Huawei has room for 6 cards. However, the port density varies considerably:
- Huawei 5616: 128 ports in 4 cards, at 32 ports per card
- Huawei 5603: 288 ports in 6 cards, at 48 ports per card
- ECI M41: 256 ports in 4 cards, at 64 ports per card

Just over a year ago, Openreach published (indirectly) data that showed how many cards were in a snapshot of nearly 35,000 of their cabinets:
http://postimg.org/image/a5yc2dcan/

There weren't that many that were completely full. But if it was entirely full, then they'd build a new one.

[Mark07]

Ah, cheers for that, this is the first time I've noticed it's showing as full but there might have been extra cards added before.

Guess I'll spot it when more line are added and my sync drops even more 

[Black Sheep]

Just a bit of info for fun …… W3 mentions in his post about 35k FTTC Cabs at that time ……. our latest figures are at 55k. 

[ejs]

The Huawei EMP 2900 Release Notes from Openreach say there's a 64 port card for them now also.

[burakkucat]

The Huawei EMP 2900 Release Notes from Openreach say there's a 64 port card for them now also.

Do you know if that 64 port card is specific to the Huawei SmartAX MA5603T or if it can also be installed in the smaller MA5616?

[WWWombat]

Just a bit of info for fun …… W3 mentions in his post about 35k FTTC Cabs at that time ……. our latest figures are at 55k. 

Really?

At the time I made that table (Jan 2015), I thought there were 61k cabinets out there (I wrote it near the top) ... and almost expect there to be another 10k installed by now.

I'm sure I can't be so far out!

[WWWombat]

The Huawei EMP 2900 Release Notes from Openreach say there's a 64 port card for them now also.

Do you know if that 64 port card is specific to the Huawei SmartAX MA5603T or if it can also be installed in the smaller MA5616?

And can it be retrofitted to any installations?

The plugs that are used to connect the linecard into the krone strips would be very hard-wired to the smaller number of ports. I'd imagine things would be slightly awkward to rewire while minimising downtime.

[WWWombat]

I'm sure I can't be so far out!

Right...

I found an ISP Forum document from Feb 2015, that quoted 60k cabs in one slide, and 61k in another slide. Plus 200 being deployed per week.

Phew!

[ejs]

The Huawei EMP2900 Release notes are very short, and freely available at the bottom of the CPE Enablement page.

They say nothing more than "Introduction of VCPD 64 Port Card".

[Black Sheep]

Just a bit of info for fun …… W3 mentions in his post about 35k FTTC Cabs at that time ……. our latest figures are at 55k. 

Really?

At the time I made that table (Jan 2015), I thought there were 61k cabinets out there (I wrote it near the top) ... and almost expect there to be another 10k installed by now.

I'm sure I can't be so far out!

Taken from our quarterly-edition of FEN (Field Engineering News) delivered to my house only yesterday. Written by our Chief Engineer (Ian Lawrence) and covering various 'mile-stones' since the birth of Openreach 10yrs ago ………..

'2009: NGA is launched in the UK. Today, over 55,000 Cabinets are now on our streets. VDSL2 provides up to 40Mb/s over FTTC'

[Mark07]

Any chance they could be disregarding the BDUK funded ones for some reason? Just reporting on the "BT funded" cabs?

[Black Sheep]

Absolutely a possibility, Mark, that could be a good shout ? However, for my money I would like to think that the head-count Ian refers to, is the total number of GEA cabs now deployed  ....... 

[WWWombat]

Just searched a bit more...

The ISP Forum from April 2015, roughly 3 months after the one reporting 60-61,000, then reported 64,000 cabinets, so successfully continuing the "200 cabs per week". The forum in September 2015 then reported 69,000 cabinets - a similar rate of progress.

Unfortunately, I don't have any forum slides from anywhere in 2013 and 2014; the last I can see in 2012 quotes 31,000 cabinets as of October 2012.

If the 2015 forums are correct, that would put the 55,000 cab total date around mid-2014 instead ... and that would roughly tie to the end of the commercial work - so it might be a reference to the BT-funded cabs. Some BDUK projects (like North Yorkshire) will have been well into their projects though.

I have gone back looking at quarterly financial reports, and can find nothing there. They only report the number of homes passed - which, IIRC, was running at a million properties per quarter pretty consistently until the latter half of 2015. I guess you'd expect a slowdown as the rural cabs gradually get smaller.

I wonder where else I've seen the figures?

_{I hope the reference to 40Mbps related to the 2009 milestone, rather than "Today"!}

[Black Sheep]

Who collates the data for the ISP Forums, W3 ?? I can't see why our Chief Engineer would quote 55k, if it was anything other than that ??