BT FTTP throttling

The fibre is most likely not going back to the local exchnage but somewhere else. Here the FTTC's are connected to Hexham 40 km away...

There is an awful lot of dark fibre out there. "New plant" could well be no more than a couple of splices.

The O/P was talking about kit inside his friends house

In this street (Lightning enabled) there is an individual duct from each house to a cabinet about 200m away, the duct is empty until a given house subscribes, then they blow in a fibre and patch it within that cabinet to a multicore fibre that comes into the cabinet (no powered kit in the cabinet, just a fibre patch field)

No doubt somewhere upstream these dozens of fibres get combined onto a single fibre, but whether that's at the headend, or in a bigger powered cabinet a mile or two away, I don't know ...

I'm just looking at a FTTC install with Sky. Sky in some regions use SOGEA, which is FTTC over copper without an active phone line - either it's dead or gives a tone. Instead they provide VOIP which plugs into the back of the router. The Sky VOIP service is completely independent of Openreach - in a Sky number block and doesn't use any Openreach features, as far as OR are concerned it's just data.

There's two problems with this. First off you need a power supply to run the phone. They ask if you don't have a working mobile or have any alarm systems that depend on the phone being there in a power outage, and the website won't let you order if that's the case (you can by phone).

Second problem is, by making the phone socket be the back of the router, all your extension sockets stop working. There is a faceplate for the NTE5 master socket which allows re-injection of the voice channel of the router back into the extensions, but at present Sky don't supply it. So anyone who orders this product loses their extension sockets - and Sky don't mention that anywhere.

The latter problem is a reason to keep the copper plant for voice. Supposedly analogue voice is to be switched off by 2025, so they will have to sort out problems like this before it happens.

Theo

(currently trying to work out how to use the Sky VOIP service with my own ATA so I can junk the Sky router - probably needs to dump the NVRAM of the router to find out the settings. First, obtain a Sky SR203 router...)

The copper runs all the way to the exchange without a joint? ;-)

Obviously, I can trawl through the many online suppliers, but does anyone have any recommendations for a UPS-type device to use instead of the former BT-supplied battery box?

Attributes required: Neat, Cheap, Reliable, Support for ONT and a BT Home Hub for a reasonable time.

I'd quite like to maintain connection even if we have a power outage - after all, phones and laptops will continue working for some time!

Not by joining all the copper together to share a party line it doesn't ;-)

Theo

I think the ONT is a 12V widget, so I might be looking at 12V powerbank type things - although many of them are not set up to charge the battery and provide an onward supply at the same time.

There are also UPSes with 12V outputs, but they often have a big lead acid battery in them - not as neat.

Not a recommendation, but:

Theo

You could just adopt the brute force approach and power the ONT via its normal wall wart, fed from a standard UPS.

I have a smallish MEM Eaton UPS that feeds my comms cabinet. That keeps the router, ONT, network switch, PABX, and my NAS units running in the event of power. The USB is connected to the NAS so it can shutdown gracefully if power depletion on the UP reaches a certain percentage.

Being a normal UPS you can run the hub and any other kit you fancy.

Possibly - the ONT on its own without a router will be of limited use. So the logic probably goes that if you can find a way to power the router and any phones etc that may also need power, then you can do the ONT as well.

That seems to be suggested here as well:

Thnaks - yes, saw that at CPC but, when we got FTTP, they were unobtainable.

Also, I don't think it would manage to power a router as well... :-(

But that is the compatness and neatness I want.

I've started to notice GPON SFPs, does anyone know if there'd be much scope for e.g. a mikrotik routerboard being able to use one to avoid having an ONU/ONT at all?

If you're looking to power more than a single wallwart's worth of kit, and you don't need one smart enough initiate a controlled shutdown of a NAS and/or a desktop PC a reasonable option would be to use a modern equivalent to the (now a 20 plus years old design) APC BackUPS 500 (350W/500VA using just a single 7AH SLA) which has the charm of only representing a vampire load of <3W (versus the 20W of an APC SmartUPS700 (450W/700VA using two 7AH SLAs)).

If you desire a "Smart" UPS, scrutinise the specification/datasheet carefully for its vampire loading (until a few years ago, a feature which was never ever mentioned by the manufacturers - it's not just APC who are guilty of this (and the battery life shortening float voltage setting of

You'll probably only discover this hidden electricity cost by tracking down properly technical reviews or else after purchase and the use of a "Plug in energy consumption monitor" (aka a digital wattmeter).

It's bad enough (on the 13.8v default setting) that you'll find yourself having to replace the UPS's "consumables" (a non too cheap SLA or two FFS! ) every 3 (to 5 you're lucky) years on top of the extra 20 quid or more on the annual electricity bill. These specifications matter a lot more to the domestic user than to a typical SME.

If you do decide on something better than an overpriced 5 to 12vdc wallwart styled LiPo based 12WH rated mini UPS, do yourself a favour by giving any Belkin badged kit a wide berth (Belkin is a byword for rebadged s**te imho gained from bitter experience).

HTH

I have found the opposite, though not UPSs; where their website provides drivers and support. Or at least used to!

Many big names don't.

IIUC, the SFP is often used to basically lumps all the functions into one unit (So not only ONT/ONU, and router but also possibly IPTV and VoIP). So cheaper for the ISP at least, and less clutter for the end user.

I'd expect that the termination of the Openreach network doesn't stop at the SFP - they expect to have their ONT on the end. OR might need some convincing to make their network instead stop at the end of the SFP.

Practically, ONTs are locked by serial number to the line. Apparently it's possible to reprogram the GPON SFP:

Theo

I've seen good and bad Belkin.

Just an ONT and a BT Home Hub.

There are plenty of options to get 12V to the ONT. Is a BT Home Hub also 12V? Will check. The issue is getting a nice, simple recharging and switchover mechanism. I'd obviously want permanent trickle to maintain charge and immediate use if mains fails.

HH 4A, 5A and 6A are 12V, 1.5A