OT - Experience of OpenReach FTTP installation via telegraph poles

[John Rumm]

That does not really make any sense...

The connection between ONT and router is Ethernet... so all the normal Ethernet rules apply - maximum segment length ~100M, connection speed

10/100/1000 Mbps etc.

Do you genuinely mean line speed, or just overall throughput?

If the former, how do you know the line speed dropped?

I could see that a crappy CCS or CCA CAT5E cable (or just a badly made patch lead) could result in a high error rate on the ethernet that would knacker throughput, but can't see how that could affect the optical side of the ONT.

[John Rumm]

Keep in mind that practice has changed with time, so what we got may not match your experience.

For example, I have no external box - the fibre is routed from the pole, through the wall, and then to the ONT which was placed in a location of my choice (next to my comms cabinet), and on an internal wall.

[John Rumm]

On mine they in effect brought the drop cable inside and directly to the ONT (they stripped back the copper pair, and the outer jacket about 1m before the ONT)

Which makes perfect sense from the installer's and maintainer#s points of view. Also solves all the discussion about paid for call outs should the fault be on the customer's side etc.

[Pancho]

When I wired my house, I found the cat-5e cable got kinks, due to twist in the cable and these caused the speed to drop to 100Mb/s. I straightened the cable and it then worked fine.

I think there is a minimum bend radius required for gigabit.

[Roland Perry]

In message <sj4166$ubr$ [e-mail], at 10:48:54 on Thu, 30 Sep

2021, The Natural Philos>> In message [e-mail],

Do they have permission to install things on the outside of other people's houses? I suppose if they were wiring that one up at the same time, the owner might not object, as long as the drop fire isn't as hideous as the typical Virgin Media cobwebs, all over the outside of their customers' houses.

[Andy Burns]

Agreed, if it's a working cat5e cable, can't see that the ONT->router would care, should manage 1Gbe easily.

[The Natural Philosopher]

Gigabit has a length limit of 100 meters. On CAT 5E/CAT 6

and you shouldn't bend it too hard.

now 100 meters sounds like a lot, but when you tale a circuitouus route, it isnt.

I am not sure how a beyond the limit cable behaves. whether it slows down or simply stops.

But an IP link faced with data corruption will slow down and try retransmits of corrupt packets

[Andy Burns]

But SH said a 10m run killed his speed.

[The Natural Philosopher]

Then he prolly had a kinked or faulty wire

[brian]

In message [e-mail], " [e-mail]" [e-mail]> writes

I had the same. The telegraph linesman took the fibre/copper line to the the existing end-of line mounting and connected the copper pair to the existing line. He then ran the fibre down the wall and drilled a hole through the wall to the dining room where there was power and he could mount the fibre modem ( not very well as it fell off)

The alternative was to run a FG black wire/fibre across the wall of my nice recently decorated kitchen in place of the nicely hidden existing phone line.

Brian

[leen...]

Hi All,

Thought I would give an update on what happened.

The main OR engineer was great - very helpful and accommodating. It seems like the accessible external box thing is a way for them to check the fibre to the property without the owner being there. In the discussion about where best to route the cables, we did discuss putting this in my garage instead and his argument was more about convenience calling out OR in the future and have to schedule being in rather than anything else. Whilst they are responsible up to and including the ONT box, I guess it enables an easier check of everything before the property this way.

He run the new fibre to wherever I wanted it (ended up on the fascia of my other gable), run a cable down to the external box and back up to the gable and in to the loft room. Internally cable run from front to back in my comms room as I wanted. In terms of the ONT box, he noticed that the internal stud wall where I have the master socket so suggested he put the ONT as well was not yet plastered so asked whether I wanted it on the wall or for him to give whatever slack I wanted on the fibre and leave it loose so it can be fitted to the wall later. I decided to go for the latter.

So all in all, if it wasn't for the need to go down and back up to the external box, would have been perfect. Thanks again all for all your help and advice.

[Vir Campestris]

Ours was happy to put an external junction box where it was convenient to them, then run a fibre inside to the under stairs cupboard.

He looked a bit worried by that until I told him there is a power point ready for it.

Andy

[Martin Brown]

If you use the worst quality badly fitting tarnished connectors and really cheap and nasty cable then that might just be true.

I can't detect any noticeable attenuation or noise on my 30m (as 2x 15m runs and an extra joint in it) run with decent quality components. If you are running GB 1000M lines then you do have to be a lot more careful about kinks and bends since they will potentially cause reflections.

If you use quality cable and don't run it parallel to mains wiring for an extended length or put kinks in it then there really shouldn't be any problem with moderate ethernet cable lengths of a few tens of metres.

Longer than internal distances in most homes.

Your experience is atypical of most installations.

[John Walliker]

A common reason for only getting 100Mbit/s or less is accidentally using two-pair patch cables. They are often supplied with adsl and sometimes even vdsl modems and routers. Gigabit ethernet does not use higher frequencies than 100Mbit, but it does use all four pairs bi-directionally and has more signalling levels so there is less noise margin. On the other hand, it has echo cancellers at each end which will help it to cope with cable imperfections.

John