My son finally had his FTTP installation completed last month after 3 unsucessful attempts... snip...
My own situation is very similar to yours, UG feeds, area just being ducted for fibre at present, POTS distribution chamber just outside my front garden wall and fairly sure my existing POTS cable is directly buried across the garden but have not been able to look into the dist. chamber yet, will likely get a peek when the contractors start to pull the fibre this week.
...snip...
As per yourself, I woud like to try and make some provision for a neat fibre transit from the dist. chamber to a house entry point of my choice but not sure as yet how this would be best accomplished.
Glad he got there in the end, good luck with yours!
I'm going to go ahead and drill and duct through the wall in the only place I can actually get into the area under the stairs from outside without the cable being surface mount around the inside of the hallway, which would be horrid. Fingers crossed that will be OK for them to use. My dad's lent me the world's longest drill (really it's ridiculous, like a 1.2m long SDS bit...). I might go and pick up something more sensible.
I'm pretty sure that duct to my neighbours actually comes under the flower bed that is immediately in front of where I want the cable to go through the wall, so I wonder if that might be an option. Would just be digging in soil to put another (maybe tiny?) chamber in the soil, instead of messing with the paving. I guess we'll see what they think once I can order it and they come out to try and do it.
I presume that the two images you have shown were captured at different times. "Chamber1" being the earlier and "Chamber2" being the later in time.
Looking at the physical construction of the chamber I see black, heavy duty, plastic. I'm not sure if that is what would have been used back in (approximately) 1986. Note the absence of any base . . . which indicates that having cut suitable access notches, it could have been "dropped" in situ over the pre-existing plant. (Armoured cables and/or ducts.) The joint closure (the "giant's thimble") could have been directly buried in the ground . . . so that could be pre-existing plant. To me, it looks as if it is openable by undoing the clamp.
The second image ("Chamber2") shows the good news. At the right-hand end there is a Connectorised Block Terminal (CBT) laying upside down. The black tube to which the CBT is attached contains pre-existing (i.e. factory installed) fibres. The other end of that tube would have been manufactured with an integral, solid, bung, allowing contractor (or direct labour) installers to push, pull, drop in mud (and all the many other grubby construction happenings) without harming the fibres within the tube. At a later date the integral, solid, bung would be cut off, along with an appropriate length of the the tubing, thus allowing the fibres to be fused to the next length of fibres back towards the aggregation node.
They were actually a few mins apart, just the CBT is held out of frame of the photo away from it's resting place to get a look at the POTS cables under it.
The chamber in it's current guise is new, my wife saw them putting it in and didn't have the good grace to call me to have a nose at the time (bad books for a few weeks for that crime...). As you say it looks like it was dropped in either over or in place of whatever was there as you can see soil in the bottom. The fibre was installed a month later, I did catch the guy at it then.
I hadn't realised that the CBT's were factory manufactured with internal fibres and the pigtail lead ready to pull through. That's great news. I guess that means when I next see the Openreach guys in the street with the splicing rigs connecting up the other end of the fibre to Mother that I'll know I'll be able to order soon.
Thanks for all the info!
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Topic: FTTP dangerously close - help on getting hole in wall to right spec (Read 13293 times)