oops

Looks like a metpost through the cable, he'd never see the thing...

As for repair costs, I worked for BT marine (when we, as in the UK) still had our own ships etc, the joints and stuff were for a max of 25 fibres, don't know about land based stuff, but I'd have thought jointing would have been much cheaper, still atleast it didn't have a king wire at 25Kv in it!

Niel, now working in the "home" of fibre comms.

Reply to
Badger
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careful where you dig!

Reply to
Nick Brooks

Not quite sure why BT's fibre optics cable was going under this man's garden!

In any case, I would hope that the Public Liability part of his household insurance would pay.

Reply to
Set Square

I would want to know why they replaced 2km of cable rather than using a couple of splice enclosures and a patch in the cut cable.. The system margin should have been able to cope with this fairly easily and the material cost would be perhaps £100, add in the labour and I'd look at less than a grand.

Looks like an excuse to upgrade the link and get somebody else to pay for it.

cheers

David

Reply to
David

Firstly I can only assume the cable must have been near the boundary wall. I doubt a fibre cable would go through someone's garden. No idea though how deep it was buried and how protected it was. Maybe the guy was using a digger?!?

As for why 2km of cable was replaced - joints in fibre do add losses. Depending on the length of the cable (in this case, 2km) a joint may have reduced it to unsatifactory levels. I would have expected a joint to have been possible - but I've no idea as to the infrastructure in place in that guy's situation.

D
Reply to
David Hearn

On Mon, 10 May 2004 12:54:12 +0100, in uk.d-i-y Nick Brooks strung together this:

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think BT are being a bit vague on this one though.

Reply to
Lurch

It was somewhere around Barstow, on the edge of the desert, when the drugs began to take hold. I remember Nick Brooks saying something like:

Reply to
Grimly Curmudgeon

snip

In general a system is designed to cope with increased losses of 6dB to account for aging of components etc. Each splice/joint should add less than

0.1dB excess loss(typically 0.02dB for a decent splice). They would need two splices to remake the connection, to give a max of 0.2dB excess loss which should still leave a margin of 5.8dB.

even if the cable had say 100 fibres the cost of connecting them all would be in the region of 100x2 x £20/splice, to give £4000 + £1000 for enclosures and other sundries.

depending on the system even upgrading the source/receiver units could be more economical than relaying the cable

Something is certainly missing from the story... but then again the the guy who went through the cable must also have been very careless, every cable is generally enclosed in a green plastic pipe, which should be fairly obvious at the time.

cheers

David

Reply to
David

Maybe it had been a common problem along the 2km length of fibre. 29 people before him damaging the cable outside their house such that he was the unfortunate person who hit the 6db limit... ;)

Certainly glad it wasn't me with the bill though!

D
Reply to
David Hearn

I found another source of info on this story, the final paragraph is the most revealing - reading between the lines it appears that BT may have installed the cable on the wrong side of this chap's boundary, and are now looking to resite the boundary...

Reply to
Will

On Wed, 19 May 2004 20:17:14 +0100, in uk.d-i-y Will strung together this:

Typical BT, get someone else to move the world if it means we don't have to do anything.

Reply to
Lurch

Whoops, be even better if I posted the link :-)

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Reply to
Will

I'm not sure that I'd read that into it at all.

It is very common for there to be a services strip at the edge of a property next to the road. I have one about a metre wide at the end of my drive where it connects with the road. It's marked either side with stone inserts at the edges of the drive.

AIUI, it is my property, but any organisation delivering services (e.g. cables, pipes, etc.) has an automatic wayleave to use this area as long as they make good afterwards.

The fences at the sides of the drive go all the way to the road and belong to me.

Given that scenario, it is easy to figure out what could have happened in this instance.

.andy

To email, substitute .nospam with .gl

Reply to
Andy Hall

Hi Andy,

I guess that you live in a fairly modern property? I have seen such like that have blocks let into front lawns that read "boundary" or similar, a meter or so before the inner edge of the pavement.

The area that I live in, which must be similar to a huge number of others, predates this scenario, in that my boundary extends to the inner edge of the pavement, the demarcation evident by slim inset "kerb stones". As far as I'm aware - and I was the first occupant of the property nearly 40 years ago - all of the services, with the exception of the overhead electrical supply, run under the road. The water cutoffs are let into the pavement, and I can remember my father (I didn't say that I was the head of the family!) cutting the 'phone line whilst laying the front lawn. The phone line entered the property perpendicular to the frontage.

It is possible that you are correct in your deductions, but having witnessed the "workmen" that the utility companies tend to employ, I am not too surprised that the cable might well be within this chap's boundary...

Reply to
Will

So in law he is only responsible for the fraction of it that they didn't cause and maybe not even that. You get a bill to setle out of court by a certain date after that things get expensive.

However the corporate world of Thatcherist monopolism has a good chance against the average DIYer in the British legal system. Remember the golden handshake for the disasterous first boss?

I'd offer a fiver a week and renege on it as often as I could. And advertise where it is buried and how to damage it, all around the local schools.

Reply to
Michael Mcneil

What on earth are you talking about ?

That's a really sensible idea...... NOT.

.andy

To email, substitute .nospam with .gl

Reply to
Andy Hall

Exactly.

Oh sure. They don't bury in the correct place or depth.

.andy

To email, substitute .nospam with .gl

Reply to
Andy Hall

"We are also looking into the fact that Mr Brown may have extended his boundary into the public highway"

Reading between the lines it appears this chap was putting up a new fence and trying to grab a bit of extra garden ;-)

MBQ

Reply to
MBQ

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