Kitz Forum

Announcements => News Articles => Topic started by: jelv on December 04, 2018, 04:58:24 PM

Title: 3.8% of FTTC/FTTrN cabinets are at capacity
Post by: jelv on December 04, 2018, 04:58:24 PM
https://www.thinkbroadband.com/news/8252-the-scale-of-the-problem-of-openreach-cabinets-at-capacity (https://www.thinkbroadband.com/news/8252-the-scale-of-the-problem-of-openreach-cabinets-at-capacity)

Quote
We looked the problems around VDSL2 cabinets being full or waiting on some other upgrade so that more orders can be taken back in April 2018 but what we did not share back then was that we had been tracking since January 2018 the number of cabinets at the capacity limit and we can now share that there are some 51 cabinets that were seen as being full in January 2018 which 11 months later are still showing as being at capacity.

In the third para of the OpenReach statement it gives the suppliers as Huawei and Nokia. Is Nokia the FTTrN? Doesn't give much hope to those on full ECI!


Title: Re: 3.8% of FTTC/FTTrN cabinets are at capacity
Post by: jelv on December 04, 2018, 05:10:24 PM
Similar report on ISPReview: https://www.ispreview.co.uk/index.php/2018/12/h2-2018-rise-in-full-to-capacity-fttc-broadband-street-cabinets.html

Quote
eol all in one pcp fttc huawei openreach cabinet

A new report has estimated that around 4.6% of premises in the United Kingdom could be affected by full to capacity FTTC (VDSL2) based “fibre broadband” street cabinets on Openreach’s (BT) network, which is up from 4.1% in April 2018 and might stop you from being able to order a new service.
Title: Re: 3.8% of FTTC/FTTrN cabinets are at capacity
Post by: burakkucat on December 04, 2018, 05:45:16 PM
In the third para of the OpenReach statement it gives the suppliers as Huawei and Nokia. Is Nokia the FTTrN?

Huawei and Nokia are the equipment suppliers for the G.Fast (ITU-T G.9700/G.9701) services.
Title: Re: 3.8% of FTTC/FTTrN cabinets are at capacity
Post by: ejs on December 04, 2018, 05:52:33 PM
Doesn't give much hope to those on full ECI!

They just build a new Huawei cabinet next to the full ECI.
Title: Re: 3.8% of FTTC/FTTrN cabinets are at capacity
Post by: j0hn on December 04, 2018, 07:01:08 PM
Not a huge problem for ECI cabinets compared to Huawei.
My ECI had a Huawei 288 added. This now has an HD extension now catering for 384 lines.
Many local ECI cabinets have 2 x ECI, from before they quit deploying ECI completely.

A local cabinet to me (PCP15 ESDAL) has 2 x ECI cabinets at the moment and according to codelook is being expanded further, which suggests a 3rd cabinet to me.

I've never seen 3 FTTC cabinets on a single PCP.
Has anyone else?

Codelook previously said it had been expanded, and now says due to be expanded some time in 2019 (Nov?).

I'll be watching with interest.
Title: Re: 3.8% of FTTC/FTTrN cabinets are at capacity
Post by: Ronski on December 04, 2018, 07:08:04 PM
We have loads of ECI cabs with Huawei twins.
Title: Re: 3.8% of FTTC/FTTrN cabinets are at capacity
Post by: j0hn on December 04, 2018, 08:42:15 PM
If Nokia isn't the FTTrN supplier (I don't recall seeing them mentioned before getting the contract for FTTP/G.Fast kit) could it be that OpenReach intend to use them for FTTC kit also?

Quote
We are about to launch technical trials for a fibre cabinet side-pod and new fibre cabinet equipment capable of supporting double the current capacity. Following successful trials we are aiming to start deploying this kit in the next financial year.

ejs pointed out a briefing last week saying they were bringing in 512pt DSLAM's

Could that be Nokia?

Or have OpenReach confused things and threw in the fact they are working with their 2 suppliers to fix capacity issues that 1 of those suppliers has nothing to do with.

I'm working with my suppliers RBS, PlusNet and Scottish Power to fix a fault with my power meter.
Title: Re: 3.8% of FTTC/FTTrN cabinets are at capacity
Post by: ejs on December 04, 2018, 08:45:09 PM
ECI M82 would do 512 VDSL2 lines.  :lol:  :fingers:
Title: Re: 3.8% of FTTC/FTTrN cabinets are at capacity
Post by: niemand on December 05, 2018, 03:13:33 PM
Don't think this has anything at all to do with ECI specifically. Openreach are probably hanging back a little bit pending availability of 512 line solutions.

Openreach haven't deployed new ECI kit in a while now. Seems that whenever ECI DSLAMs are full they just build a Huawei next to them. I've seen extended Huawei 96 and 288 cabinets, presumably to 128 and 384, so those guys are I think ripe for further upgrade as investment is ongoing but ECIs just get a new, Huawei, DSLAM.

With the Huawei upgrades there's actually absolutely no reason why Openreach wouldn't install upgraded Huawei and decommission the ECI. The availability of single DSLAM cabinet solutions that reach 512 lines makes this an option. Install a new Huawei to replace everything, migrate everyone over, write off the old cabinet, no more support contract or operational costs on it and an accounting gain.

Getting Huawei kit to 512 lines means another 2 line card slots, presumably via a remote backplane connected to the existing kit via fibre and a power connector. They do that to the Huawei 96s as well those guys end up moving from originally 96 to 256 lines overall. Not too shabby.

This said, the cabinets will end up looking like Frankenstein's monster. The small Huaweis look weird when extended already.

Be interesting to see what they decide to do. They have a few options once Huawei have delivered the 512 line kit and, of course, Alcatel / Nokia make modular DSLAMs / ISAMs that'll do 192 lines per 4 slot shelf and allow multiple shelves per cabinet depending on needs so they could bring them into the VDSL 2 mix alongside making vectoring and G.fast from the same device an option.

Thanks to ejs for pointing out that briefing. This makes it clearer what Openreach are up to.
Title: Re: 3.8% of FTTC/FTTrN cabinets are at capacity
Post by: ejs on December 05, 2018, 07:02:07 PM
I thought the smaller Huawei cabinets originally had 4 x 32 port line cards (128), upgraded to 4 x 48 = 192 ports.

Maybe someone will decide Huawei are evil (again) and you really will get ECI M82s.
Title: Re: 3.8% of FTTC/FTTrN cabinets are at capacity
Post by: burakkucat on December 05, 2018, 09:31:17 PM
I thought the smaller Huawei cabinets . . .

. . . containing a Huawei SmartAX MA5616 MSAN (just deployed as a DSLAM) . . .

Quote
. . . originally had 4 x 32 port line cards (128), upgraded to 4 x 48 = 192 ports.

Yes, that agrees with what I recall.  :)
Title: Re: 3.8% of FTTC/FTTrN cabinets are at capacity
Post by: j0hn on December 05, 2018, 09:46:28 PM
OpenReach have now got 256 ports out of the smaller cabinets.

4x 64 ports with an HD expansion

They can only do 128 if vectoring is deployed.
Title: Re: 3.8% of FTTC/FTTrN cabinets are at capacity
Post by: niemand on December 05, 2018, 11:02:08 PM
The 5616s were originally 96 ports, 4 x 24. If you look at planning documents you'll see them referred to as Huawei 96s. That's where my comment about their original capacity came from. They have been 128s then 192s for ages though. Brain barf on my part referring to them as HD expanded to 128s or 192s, apologies!
Title: Re: 3.8% of FTTC/FTTrN cabinets are at capacity
Post by: burakkucat on December 05, 2018, 11:13:54 PM
Thanks, CarlT. I have probably forgotten most of what I knew about those devices.

They can only do 128 if vectoring is deployed.

I really don't know why j0hn makes a reference to vectoring.  ???
Title: Re: 3.8% of FTTC/FTTrN cabinets are at capacity
Post by: niemand on December 06, 2018, 10:44:18 AM
Ya know, these Huawei 512s mean that almost every PCP can have all lines moved from exchange to remote nodes with a maximum of 2 cabinets in a node. I'm pretty sure the vast majority of PCPs are fine with one.

Areas where there are alternative networks like VM it's even perfectly legitimate to somewhat overbook the cabinets as VM will take 30-40% of the premises.

There are plenty of nations where parts of the network run this way and have for a while to avoid having long high copper count cable runs. Over 12 million premises in the UK have access to telephony delivered this way already and have for a decade or more.

The long, slow march towards POTS switch off continues.
Title: Re: 3.8% of FTTC/FTTrN cabinets are at capacity
Post by: j0hn on December 06, 2018, 12:32:36 PM
Thanks, CarlT. I have probably forgotten most of what I knew about those devices.

I really don't know why j0hn makes a reference to vectoring.  ???

As the capacity of the MA5616 was being discussed?

OpenReach run them up to 256 ports with HD extension, but the line cards on the smaller Huawei cabinets only do vectoring on the 32 port cards last time I checked, limiting them to 128 ports.

With regards to Huawei MA5616's...
OpenReach have 256 port versions live in the network.
OpenReach have 128 ports vectored live in the network.