29 September 2022 – Trooli scheduled works keeps coming up on One-Network but their is no sign of any activity yet.
4 October 2023 – Trooli scheduled works in Station Street, maybe its getting closer 🙂
8 January 2024 – Infrastructure work started!
Trooli
Well 2022 is a very busy year for broadband in Chatteris, Openreach now deliver Ultrafast broadband with fibre to the premises (FTTP), Virgin Media are expanding their 2017 network in the town to include homes and business not previously included, Netomnia started work in May to lay down its own independent FTTP infrastructure and now Trooli are making a presence all with their own independent network.
What is interesting is that Trooli have an agreement with UK Power Networks to run their fibre optic cables across certain power poles, enabling them to reach many more customers. The write up on this can be found HERE.
I just wonder where all these customers are coming from to give payback on the huge investment these companies are outlaying?
Screen grab from www.one-network 10 Aug 2022
Work Commenced – 8th Jan 24
Checking on Onenetwork, Trooli works were highlighted, (telephone symbol), from the 8th to 15th Jan at:
Wenny Road
Old Huntingdon Road
Huntingdon Road
Iretons Way
I knew that Trooli had been working in Sutton, so checked the Wenny Road location first as the fibre to Chatteris comes from there on route to Warboys, and saw the fibre engineers van, I obviously must have missed the earlier fibre pull from Sutton and the one on route to Warboys.
Chatting to the guy who was very cordial, he told me that a 48 core fibre runs from Sutton, and from this they splice off into either pole or footway box Connectorised Block Terminal which Trooli refer to as an ‘FPs’.
The lockable FP used has an inbuilt optical splitter, splitting a single fibre into 16 customer ports.
FP in the process of being spliced into the main trunk fibre before being placed into the footway box for customer connection at a later date.
In chatting, it appears, (at this stage of my understanding), that the Trooli topography is different to Netomnia or Openreach where they have either aggregation nodes or differing levels of fibre dissemination with plenty of spare fibres taken to the exchange.
Trooli seem to simply reduce the trunk fibre by one each time they connect a 16 port FP, I must be missing something otherwise that will give a maximum customer number of 46 x 16 = 736, leaving 2 fibres to pick up Warboys.
8 June 2022 – Netomnia press release regarding full fibre broadband to Doddington – details HERE, (doesn’t mention Chatteris, but in the current infrastructure works permission from Cambridgeshire County Council, Netomnia have used the Project Reference as – J032025-172553-Doddington).
Letter from Netomnia
Dated 13th June 2022, addressed simply to ‘The Occupier’, warming people up to minor disruption due to civil works, with the end advantage of FTTP Ultrafast broadband.
I was informed on the 28th June 2022, that the Youfibre website was allowing certain Chatteris postcode areas to pre-order the service, this early tranche looks that the selected properties have connectivity to the buried Openreach duct system, those properties with overhead or directly buried cabling are not included as yet.
I used Postcode Checker to determine service eligibility at the moment.
If you want to ‘dip your toe’ in the Youfibre pool, you can sign up for a ‘no contract’ service, instead opting for a 30 day rolling renewal option.
1 July 2022 – For Info: Direct Debit set up with my bank using the name of “GC re Youfibre Limited”, the GC stands for GoCardless the company they use for Direct Debit collections.
30 June 2022, I’ve pre-ordered 150Mb service and received my confirmation, the key points are:
Pre-order early and get 6 months free
150Mb package costs £25 inc VAT for 18 month contract
As its a pre-order, no monies are taken until service is delivered
As this is a pre-order, I can cancel my intention for installation without penalty
I can take up this offer, at this set price for up to 24 months into the future, this will allow time for my existing service contract to expire and it will also allow me to let people know of my gmail email address, rather than the one tied into Talktalk.
19 June 2022 – Youfibre ‘door to door’ canvasser called, informing me that Youfibre is coming to the area and was looking to see if I was interested so that I could receive a’ follow up call’ and newsletter, I did say I was already signed up, but I think she needed my details for her ‘quota’.
20 February 2023 – I decided to renew with TalkTalk for a few reasons:
Uncertain that Youfibre will be live when my current TalkTalk contract expires, meaning the loss of any bargaining power,
TalkTalk offered 150Mb service for £23 per month on an 18 month contract, which is cheaper than I was paying for 65Mb,
I reflected on how I felt ‘locked in’ to the TalkTalk email service, for example the number of accounts where my password resets link to this,
My home network would need a static IP from Youfibre at an additional cost of £5 per month making the overall cost unattractive,
Youfibre in the town helped me negotiate a competitive price from TalkTalk.
23 February 2023 – Netomnia network is now live to certain parts of Chatteris as the roll out continues.
FTTP Rollout
Yet more choice for broadband provision in Chatteris, with the rollout of XGS-PON. 100% fibre to the premises, (FTTP) supplied by wholesaler Netomnia, whose mission is to become the third largest national, full fibre infrastructure operator.
The main difference with Netomnia is that it is a totally independent network, synchronous or symmetrical speeds, (same uploading speed as the downloading speed), resilient fibre optic design and with speeds up to 10Gbps(10,000Mbps)!!.
Netomnia sister company, YouFibre, are the Internet Service Provider (ISP) for this Ultra Fast Broadband FTTP, although it is expected that other ISPs may take advantage of the services that this wholesaler offers and partner with Netomnia.
Unforeseen Delay to Delivery
The expected go live date was September/October 2022 and availability and rollout details can be checked HERE, this has been delayed due to unforeseen duct blockages or lack of duct capacity necessitating significant civil works.
PartialGo live for Chatteris is February 2023 as I understand it.
The Openreach duct route from Doddington has been extensively damaged over time due to it being made of clay, this has led to investment in repairs and new ducting to be installed.
The above images are just one example of what Netomnia are up against, the installer of the street lights in a section of Doddington Road have damaged and blocked the clay Openreach ducts, meaning that the main spine fibre cannot continue to Chatteris until repaired (Taken 1/12/22).
Infrastructure Enabling Works
Flurry of broadband activity in the town, as Virgin Media are expanding their existing infrastructure at the same time as Netomnia are installing theirs.
Netomnia infrastructure works started in early May, with the installation of Netomnia double size footway boxes to house either the Level 1 (L1), Level 2 (L2) or both splice enclosures for there dedicated fibre network around the town.
These will be interconnected by sub ducts which will ultimately connect to the main spine bringing the fibre service into Chatteris via Doddington.
Details from – https://one.network. The telephone handset symbol shows areas of of work by both Virgin Media (Orange circle) and Netomnia (Green circle) contractors for 26th to 30th May 2022
The fibre sub ducts are being drawn into Openreach’s existing ducts as a result of OFGEMS Physical Infrastructure Access agreement which permits Communication Providers access, this means there is not a lot to see as the splicing nodes will be in the cable chambers in the pavements as I understand it.
By using Openreach ducts, just like Virgin Media are doing, the micro duct which brings the blown fibre to your house, uses the existing duct which is used for your landline telephone. If the service is via an overhead line, a fibre cable can also be used, Netomnia have, in other towns, installed telephone poles where otherwise customers would not have been able to get a service.
The ducts Virgin Media use are Green in colour, whereas Netomnias ducts are Purple and Openreach are Grey, all for ease of identification.
Netomnia are using Opals Group to undertake the work of installing the physical infrastructure to allow the fibre cables to be blown in at a later date.
24th May 22 – Fiber optic sub duct being drawn into Openreach footway joint box.
24th May 22 – Second sub duct being pulled in to chamber
25th May 22 – Sub duct through connection point using push fit coupling.
25thMay 22 – New Netomnia Footway Box installed in the verge, very neat job with the area re-seeded, this box is ducted to the Openreach footway box to allow interconnection. The two grey boxes belong to Virgin Media with the nearest one also being ducted to the Openreach footway box by the Green Openreach cabinet (PCP – Primary Cross Connection Point).
26th May 22 – Linking of an Openreach footway box with a new Netomnia footway L2/3 node point.
23 January 2023 – Purple Netomnia main spine micro-ducts looping through footway box.
27th May 22
Another new footway box going in, connected to an existing Openreach box, this activity is being replicated in many places across Chatteris and demonstrates considerable investment in infrastructure.
Netomnia network backbone fibre microtube link to carry a single fibre optic cable with 288 cores, being pulled in from Chatteris to the Doddington local head end ,or Level 0 which is in the Telephone Exchange.
Doddington Telephone Exchange
The microtube journey is in Openreach existing duct routes along Doddington Road, when Virgin Media followed the same route in 2017, they had to dig a new trench all the way, this is the massive benefit of the Physical Infrastructure Agreement.
Guide on installation of fibre cables by blowing – HERE.
6 July 2022
Opal engineers installing a Connectorised Block Terminal (CBT) in Farriers Gate footway box, the CTB which is stood up. belongs to Openreach, (I’m connected to it!), whilst the one lying on its side, belongs to Netomnia.
6th July 22
What is interesting to note is that both companies are using the same manufactures CBT, this must mean that the consumers installation process will be the same as that used by Openreach and described in my Talk Talk Future Fibre Blog.
6th July 22
8 August 2022
Civils contractors have started to excavate pavements to install new ducts (or tracks as Opal refer to them), where the existing Openreach ducts are either blocked or congested.
Blockages/congested routes are indicated by a red ‘B’ and direction arrows have popped up across the town ready for remedial works:
New Road, Netomnia ductwork infrastructure being installed where the existing Openreach route was congested.
13 September 2022
Installation underway of Netomnia Connectorised Block Terminals (CBT) on the existing telephone poles where the duct to the local footway box is available, this will enable subscribers with overhead lines access to ultrafast fibre optic broadband.
This images show two different versions of Netomnia installed standard 8 port CBT’s, details on fibre equipment can be found HERE, it is interesting to note that Openreach install up to 12 port units.
Pole evolution
Pole mounted splice enclosure, the two fibre cables on the right are from CBT’s, one on this pole, the other on another pole linked by an overhead connection.
One down, loads left to do
May 2022
Jan 2023
Jan 2023
All around town a number of footway markings are appearing at the base of telephone poles, indicating that a new duct link (pole bend), to the nearest footway box is due to be made if no existing duct exists, or if the existing one is blocked or damaged.
The last three picture in the slide show above show the existing copper telephone cables feeding the pole are above the surface of the pavement, causing Netomnia to install a new pole bend bend:
Advance notice of civil works in New Road to the pole pictured in the slide show above.
Netomnia advance notice indicating new poles are to be installed:
I contacted Netomnia on 16 September to gain further information, confirmation of 5 new poles to be installed was provided by Opals Senior Project Coordinator on the 28 September, the proposed ROUGH locations are:
Corner of West Street and Gibside Avenue
Newlands Road
St Martins Road – Installation delayed – new pole application 13 Feb 23
Victoria Street
Pound Road – Installation not required, used long overhead span
Update 27 October 22 – Netomnia Pole Installed, Gibside Avenue
Installed 27 October 2022
31 October 2022 – Newlands Road –
Ian and Steven were the technicians installing the 9 meter high pole working for Instalcom Ltd, they did a great job, were really friendly and customer focused. Brilliant ambassadors for Instalcom Ltd.
1 December 2022
With the imminent fibre spine link to Doddington being established after several delays due to duct damage/blockages meaning extensive civil works to rectify, their are at least two teams installing CBTs on existing telephone poles and a fibre technician has started splicing works from the CBT (Level 4) to the Level 3 node.
The image above is a fibre splicing enclosure (Level 3 Point), this example has 5 fibre cables, these are broken down as follows:
Two fibre cables are from two 8 port pole mounted CBTs (Level 4 ), depending on the CBT manufacture, of which Netonmia use two, either there will be one fibre spliced supplying all 8 ports due to an inbuilt optical splitter in the CBT or 8 fibres from each CBT port will need to be individually spliced to the fibre cable from the upstream Level 2 splicing connection.
Once completed, the enclosure will be stowed in a footway box making for a neat installation.
For clarity as I understand it, Level 0 is the origin of the fibre service which is Doddington Telephone Exchange, the main trunk cable from Doddington comprising of 288 fibres is terminated in a number of Level 1 hubs in Chatteris, 7 in total, 4 on the journey from Doddington and 3 in Chatteris.
Level 2 branches further sub divide into multiple Level 3 connections as above, before final connection to individual 8 port CBTs, Level 4.
8 Port Netomnia Connectorised Block Terminal ready for pole mounting.
From the CBT, this is the last leg of the fibre cable before it enters your property.
Each trunk single fibre can accommodate 32 properties, therefore the maximum number of properties served by one trunk cable is 9,216!
23 January 2023
The Netomnia network in Doddington is now LIVE and there is a real push to get Chatteris online after significant investment in installing new ducts due to the existing ducts being blocked/congested/damaged.
Technician fibre splicing the 288 core trunk fibre cable from Doddington exchange mid-way to Chatteris, the design of the system will allow for future expansion, to illustrate this, the whole of the current Doddington and Chatteris scheme only use 60 fibres in the exchange!
26 January 2023
Start of the Level 1 Chatteris core distribution fibre splicing to other L1 nodes, not all fibres are spliced through, only the ones required for this phase of the scheme as this saves both time and money:
L1 node being through spliced for distribution linking other L1 nodes to the network.
29 January 2023
Level 2 (L2) Distribution node being spliced in the rear of a specially adapted vehicle, in the picture you can see a 44 core fiber which is black with a yellow tracer, this is from a L3 node, the other two black fiber cables are 288 cores linking further L2’s.
The L2 node will be located in a new Netomnia installed double footway box which was installed in May 2022.
1 February 2023
Caught up with the second splicing team who were working on the Level 3 (L3) terminations:
The picture shows two black with yellow tracer cables, each of which has 48 fibres, these are the interlinks to other L3 node fed from the L2 distribution node.
The tiny coloured tubes in the picture contain 12 fibres and each 48 core has 4 of these tubes.
The four clear tubes in the enclosure are from the pole mounted CBTs (L4), looking closely, one of these is a smaller diameter than the other three, this is due to the smaller tube only has one fiber in it as the 8 way pole CBT has an inbuilt splitter, whereas the other three have 8 fibers in the tube, one to each CBT port.
I did ask the reason for two differing types of CBT and the chap said is was due to how the network was designed.
Footway hardware ready to mount the completed L3 node so it can be neatly stowed.
9 February 2023
Plenty of continued activity by Opals Group, Netomnias infrastructure contractor, in New Road a footway box CBT was being relocated to another footway box due to the original box being over congested and not meeting the space requirements required by Openreach.
Further down the same road, a splicing technician was busy with a complicated L3 node.
10 February 2023
Notification of new pole installation in St Martins Road posted on the 10 February 2023, the first notification of a new pole in this location was on the 13 September 2022, but installation could not proceed as the proposed location did not give the required amount of room to pass on the pavement.
New pole position is on the opposite side of the road to the originally proposed location, position marked on the ground, (circle with a cross in it), next to the Virgin Media cabinet.
Around town, I also noticed a new sign dated 8 Feb 23, has been posted indicating the installation a new pole in Station Street.
14 February 2023
Lots observed today, L3 splicing by Aldi, fibre being blown in New Road, Level 2 (L2) splice being made off at the top of New Road and preparations being made by St Peters Drive/New Road for another L2 splice..
Big push to get Chatteris online me thinks!
Picture taken in May 2022 just after the Netomnia Footway Box had been installed.
Taken 9 months from the installation of the above footway box in New Road to L2 splicing.
Further down New Road, scoping for a L2 spice to be undertaken over the next day or so.
Junction of St Peters Drive/New Road.
The above picture shows the In & Out main 288 fibre core cable from/to other L2 splice enclosures (blown in purple duct), also you can see two 48 fibre core cables from L3 distribution splice enclosures all ready to be dressed ready for termination.
17 February 2023
Level 2 splice feeding Farriers Gate being undertaken, the fibres are live from Doddington, so as each fibre is spliced the light continues onto the next L2 /L3 & CBT.
Network deployment is progressing well in Chatteris, a few duct blockages to clear before the L3 fibres can be drawn in and connected.
In another part of the towns deployment is delayed due to scaffolding being built directly on top of a footway box, the Netomnia infrastructure team need to get a spine sub duct pulled through this in order to connect a Level 2 node.
Netomnia progress halted due to scaffolding in London Road.
The testing team for my area is due on Monday 20th February, where they will confirm satisfactory light levels at the CBT’s ready for customers connections.
19 February 2023
Sunday and three splicing teams are on the go in town, by Spectacular a Level 2 node was being spliced, the picture also shows a completed Level 1 node which feeds the Level 2 being worked on.
In the footway box is two empty purple sub ducts ready for the spine fibre to be blown in once the obstructing is cleared as written about on the 17th February.
23 February 2023 – NETWORK LIVE
The Netomnia network in Chatteris is now officially live after testing.
Netomnia technician removing a dust cap protecting a port on a CBT prior to connecting his test equipment.
Plugging his Exfo Optical Power Meter into the port he noted the reading of -20.35dB which was a pass, anything greater than -22.75dB is a fail.
His test confirms the correct optical signal level at the CBT from the Doddington exchange enabling sign off with the next step being canvassing for subscriber uptake.
1 March 2023
Opals engineers working to unblock a duct route to Fenton Way business area, the equipment costs £10k and is designed to push a heavy duty rod through obstructions, but not in this case 🙁 meaning a civils team will need to excavate and manually repair the ducting.
Just before coming across the guys rodding, I saw a Youfibre ‘door to door’ sales representative hard at work selling the benefits.
16 March 2023
Still lots of civil works bring Netomnia’s fibers to parts of the town once the duct restrictions have been resolved, as parts of Chatteris are now live, a mail drop has occurred enclosing the following leaflet:
This is probably the most important section of the blog as customer satisfaction in such a crowded marketplace is crucial, as bad news travels fast.
I’ve attached, (with the authors permission and my thanks), unabridged Facebook comments on their experience and performance using YouFibre:
Mr Green
Mr Naisbett
Mr Thompson
My order was delayed by quite a bit, (original install date in September last year) but it finally got put in a couple weeks ago. There was the big hold up at the other end getting it connected but once things were rolling and I got the all green, they came and did the outside line (annoyingly without prebooking, but whatever) that took like 10 minutes. Much less faff than Virgin Media. And then their install lads came and sorted me out a few days later of an evening.
Polite and friendly on all occasions, they made it clear they don’t actually work for YouFibre though, and that at times they don’t get all the information they should have, so please do be patient with them if they don’t have 100% correct info, that sounds like it’s on YouFibre’s call centre.
I wasn’t aware of them using a strange NAT setup so thanks whoever it was pointed that out, I was hoping to avoid getting a static IP but if I need that to break through a forced NAT then sobeit.
Speed has been excellent so far, I got their YouMesh thing with the 1Gb Service, which is a bit paradoxical given you can only get 250Mb from the ‘Nodes’ even if you use a cable, which is a bit silly, so I’ve unplugged those and just use the Eero main hub for now. I’ll be plumbing it into my own Mesh later once I’ve got the time, but for now, happily getting 750Mb + both ways via WiFi on a WiFi 6 connected device that’s not exactly right next to it, so pretty pleased with that.
Haven’t tested the latency extensively, given I’m on WiFi currently that seemed pointless to do yet, may report back with findings at a later point.
Definitely recommend them, they’re less than half the price of Virgin Media and that’s excellent for a symmetrical line in the UK. I just hope they prove to be as popular as they should be and spread to other areas, the UK needs more competition in the broadband Market, BT only do the bare minimum and VM are just pricing things stupidly.
18 April 2023 – Another New Pole
Two new poles were installed today on behalf of Netomnia, (Park Street and St Martins Road), these will be used as transit poles to reduce the overhead fibre span distance to the next pole/other poles having CBTs fitted.
Guys setting up for the installation, the difference between these poles and the one installed in Newlands Road is that it came complete with pole hardware already fitted, (steps & top ring), and it also bears the name of the provider.
11 October 2023 – New Poles
Two new transit poles have been installed today carrying overhead fibre optic cables to enable service connections to be available on existing poles:
Corner of Railway Lane and Horsegate Gardens.
New pole outside The Ship, a further pole is due for installation in the town but I do not have the location at the time of this update.
Their are only two options, the fibre either goes above or below ground!
Netomnia are able to use existing Openreach underground ducts which brings your telephone line to your house, these same ducts are used to draw in a new fibre optic cable which terminates directly inside your home.
It might be the case that your existing telephone cable does not use a duct and the cable is ‘directly buried’ in the ground, I’m not sure how Netomnia would tackle this if you wanted the service, they may opt to install a new telephone pole, and use overhead lines to your house from this.
Above ground junction box is a typical indication that the phone lines to properties are directly buried.
Virgin Media use ‘directly buried’ micro ducts from the pavement ‘Toby boxes’ to your house external wall to bring their fibre to the house, but they are the only provider to do so as I understand it.
If your telephone line comes in overhead, then a fibre optical cable will use the same method, as long as the pole has been enabled with the network hardware.
This telephone pole is nearest to where I live so it was quite easy to monitor its progress:
25th May 22, Sub Duct installed to upstream footway box
26th May – 29th May, New double footway box installed near pole DP262
11th June, floor markings appear indicating the pole needs a new duct installing
22nd August, Opals civils install new duct to pole DP262
11th October, pole CBT installed
17th February 23, L2 splicing to make pole live for testing on the 20th February.
24 August 22, work to install new duct to pole
Opals engineer installing the CBT, no ladders are used on the pole, all work was carried out from the vehicles bucket.
23 January 2023, fibre cable being blown to L2 node in New Road.
For a sense of scale, the Chatteris scheme including DP262 is fed from Doddington Exchange.
23 January 2023 – Netomnia trunk fibre being spliced through in Doddington Road, you might just be able to make the technician out in the copse.
Pole Mounted CBT Connection to L3
The fibre cable to the pole CBT in the above image was neatly clipped down the pole and ran in a new duct to a footway box for splicing and this method is adopted where duct access is available.
Another method Netomnia employ to get a CBT fibre cable to a pole or number of poles is overhead, this could be due to duct blockages, duct capacity issues or financial considerations based on time.
The above picture is of an existing Openreach Pole in Fairway with three telephone lines fanning out to the right, the horizontal cables at the top of the pole are fibre cables to other pole mounted CBTs, from this pole you can see that six CBTs will be spliced here.
Another example from New Road where the fibre for five other pole CBTs are fed overhead and will be terminated in a footway box near the base of the main pole in the picture.
14 December 2022, external temperature -5oC and fibre splicing continues.
Technician splicing 6 fibres, (5 plus 1 from the poles CBT), New Road.
Fibre/Broadband equipment in the home
Based on information from forums on Youfibre installation, the feedback is very positive in other towns.
Very little information regarding Youfibre installations exists currently on the internet, probably due to the company only relatively recently formed.
The fibre can get to the property either via the existing telephone duct or via overhead from the same pole as your phoneline,.
The externally graded fibre is spliced in an enclosure to a fibre cable suitable for installation into the property.
Youfibre standoff bracket designed to bring an overhead fibre from the nearest pole whilst coping with the gutter overhang.
Images of different Customer Service Points used by Netomnia.
Simon kindly sent the image of his YouFibre CSP which was cabled from a footway box CBT.
This blog is about the roll out of Virgin Media fibre to the home in Chatteris from the civil works through to the delivery of a live service at my house and beyond.
To report insecure or damaged Virgin Media street cabinets: Call 0330 333 0444
26 October 17, Trench tarmacked and construction barriers removed.
5 November 17, I buried 20mm conduit from Toby to house wall and included a draw cord.
26 Nov 18, Cabinet AF0503 made live.
1 Feb 18, Virgin Postcode Checker now shows service available in my street.
4 Feb 18, Ordered VIVID 200 package for installation on Friday 23 Feb 18 between 13:00 – 16:00. Went through to the Virgin Media shop in Peterborough looking for some form of promotion or deal to reduce costs, this didn’t happen, in fact they suggested I could save money ordering in shop as they would waive the installation and F-Secure costs, this was incorrect as the online booking information has these as free, also they wanted £25 up front, £20 activation fee and £5 which would be returned once the service was active, online it is £20 only activation, so I booked online, as an aside, if I had ordered in the shop my statutory rights to cancel is reduced from 14 to 10 days protection which you get when booking online.
11 Feb 18, received two e-mails, the first containing e-sign contract, the other was what to expect on the day of installation.
16 Feb 18, received mobile call from Callum of the Virgin Media installation team wanting to come and install a microduct from the Toby to my house, fit the Omnibox and blow the fibre from the street cabinet to the Omnibox, this is done a week in advance of the engineers on the 23 Feb, I arranged for the following day to meet them as I was 180 miles away! (this part of the process was not known to me and came out of the blue, I assumed it would be a ‘one hit’ visit).
17 Feb 18, James from the installation team rang to cancel as Callums son had a fall and was needed at home, as the install is a two man job I returned his call and rearranged for Monday 19 Feb after 16:00.
19 Feb 18, James & Callum turned up at the appointed time to install the microduct, fibre and Omnibox.
The guys first photographed a laminated sheet showing my address, date and their names next to my open Toby, once this was done they threaded a black microduct pipe from the pavement Toby through the conduit I had previously laid to the house, the brown Omnibox was fixed to the wall with 4 screws and the microduct pipe clipped into place in the Omnibox, at the Toby a coupling was installed transitioning from the green microduct to the black microduct.
Transition coupling, black microduct to house, green microduct to street cabinet.
The distance was measured using a measuring wheel from my Toby to the street cabinet (72.5 m), while the measuring was going on, compressed air was blown down the microduct from the house, this caused the yellow protective cap to be blown off the end of the green microduct in the cabinet, identifying which tube out of many, as coming from my house.
In the cabinet a ‘fibre catcher’ was fitted, at the house end the fibre cassette containing 100m of fibre was fixed on a device which enabled the fibre to be blown into the duct until it was caught by the cabinet catcher.
At the cabinet, the fibre catcher was removed and a protective sleeve was fitted over the fibre and terminated in a connection, this connection was then plugged into a breakout panel in the cabinet.
We were the first in this cabinet.
At the house end, the surplus fibre from the cassette was wrapped within the Omnibox, the house end is pre terminated, once this was done, a reading was taken of light losses (-0.13db) to check they were in an acceptable range, the reading was photographed with the laminated sheet used earlier as proof of service in advance of the technical install scheduled on Friday 23 Feb 18.
Completed Omnibox after first visit ready for the optical media converter and splitter to be fitted.
23 Feb 18, Go Live Day – Engineer Sam arrived between the allotted time of 13:00 to 18:00 to start the installation.
He was quite happy that the hole through the wall into the lounge was already in, as was the dry lining that he could hang the Isolated Power Injector on.
First job was to push a peice of HFC cable though the wall from the Omnibox and put a connector on the end, this was connected to the Isolated Power Injector (IPI) Teleste IP1-G1)), which is mounted within an enclosure on the lounge wall (the screw holes of the enclosure and backplate fit a standard dry lining box), a short length of HFC cable from this goes to a 12v plug in PSU in order to back feed the external optical media converter with power.
The bottom IPI output is connected to a 2 way splitter (Technetix ESX-02), one leg goes to the router (a 3db attenuator was installed to balance the system), the other leg to the TV box.
As the TV box, Router and Optical media converter require power, three 240v sockets are required.
In the Omnibox, the HFC cable was terminated, and plugged into a DC passing port of the 4 way splitter (Amphenol Model ABS104TP), from the splitter this is plugged into the Vector Boostral 610 optical media converters output.
Once the external works was completed, the router and TV box were powered up and an Ethernet cable from the router to TV box was plugged in. The hardware went through three re-boots and software updates and I was good to go.
24 Feb 18, Netflix is suffering lip sync issues when viewed through the VM TV Box, also download speeds vary from 210Mb to 38Mb (wireless tests), it’s early days, so I hopefully this will stabilize soon.
25 Feb 18, Speed test using direct cabled connection to Virgin Media router (200Mb service ordered) :
25 Feb 18 @ 14.11
2 Mar 18, TalkTalk, my existing provider reduced my package ‘Fibre Large’ which is Fibre To The Cabinet’ (FTTC) by £26:25, on knowing I was thinking about leaving for Virgin Media, they did this by moving me to the ‘Faster Fibre Plan’.
I get the same package as before (TV, broadband and phone landline including line rental) for £31.75 per month, the download and upload speeds I’m getting are more than enough for my needs even when all the kids are home battering the broadband, also I keep my landline, Virgin Media have not yet enabled VOIP on the router which was another factor for me.
I called Virgin Media to cancel my arrangement (within the 14 day ‘cooling off’ period), they obviously asked why and I mentioned the main reason was cost and as an aside, that my wireless speeds were faster with TalkTalk rather than Virgin Media.
Perplexed by this, he transferred me to technical in a foreign land and they remotely checked the line and rebooted the router, then asked me to perform a router reset using a paperclip, which I did whilst they were on the phone. They assured me everything was working properly and I did a wireless speedtest and managed 136Mb download.
Checking later I took the following images of speed:
Download 49.4Mb, Upload 12.5 Mb from Virgin Media
Download 62.3Mb, Upload 17Mb from TalkTalk on 5GHz
The above results used OOKLA Speedtest on an iPhone 6, as the SSID on the Virgin Media router is the same for 2.4GHz and 5GHz I didn’t know which Wi-Fi band I was measuring, I was however, the only device was connected to it.
For balance I ran another TalkTalk test at 2.4GHz, and the readings came out at Download 41.7Mb, Upload 16.8Mb which wasn’t too shabby, especially as 7 wireless devices were connected.
I also ran a directly ethernet connected Virgin Media router test later with a laptop at 20:00hrs 2 March 18, and managed a download speed of 76.17Mb and upload of 10.3Mb, not brilliant for an upto 200Mb service which I was assured was working as it should.
The upshot is that I staying with TalkTalk meaning that I reluctantly terminated my arrangement with Virgin Media effective from 3 March 18.
8 Mar 18, Disconnected my Virgin Media as per the instructions which came in my returns packaging and boxed up the following way as requested:
Router;
TV box;
Remote control;
Two power supplies;
Leads for the above PSU’s;
Splitter and three CATV cables.
This was then taken to my local ‘Click & Collect’ store and it was winging it way back to Virgin Media at nill cost to me.
14 Mar 18, Text from VM to say the kit has been received and any charge for kit that might have been applied to my account will be credited, also received an e-mail:
21 Mar 18, Received my first and last Virgin Media bill, this covers the week I had the service and the activation charge, total payable – £36.67.
30 Mar 18, Checking my bank statements and no money has been taken by Virgin Media so I cancelled the Direct Debit to them.
1 Apr 18, Received e-mail from Virgin Media thanking me for joining them and asking me to complete a short survey which I did even though I’m no longer a customer.
4 Apr 18, Virgin Media activity showed on my bank statement ( – £36.76 then +£36.67), contacted VM and they said I do not have to pay anything as I cancelled within 14 days.
11 Apr 18, Text from Virgin Media to call 0800 052 2630 in order to clear my outstanding balance, talked to Kirsten and she saw the error that cancelling within 14 days shouldn’t have triggered a bill, so she added a small credit to my account in order to cancel the debt on the system.
25 May 18, Received letter from Virgin regarding GDPR.
Hybrid Fibre-Coaxial cable and below that a fibre optic connector
Phased civils started in June 2017 and by 4 January 2018 first subscriber activated.
I currently use TalkTalk Fibre to the Cabinet, this the same as BT Infinity, SKY, Plusnet etc, this means a fibre optic cable is brought from the local exchange to a street cabinet, from this the existing telephone copper cable is used for broadband and phone, depending how close you are to the cabinet will determine how fast your broadband is, in may case, I get a maximum speed of 62.79Mbps download, 17.34Mbps Upload and a Ping time of 17.34ms which is probably the best I can get (using Speedtest 15/11/17 @ 18:00).
Diagram showing how Fibre To The Home (FTTH) is just that.
I was delighted when I saw that the Virgin Media cable enabling works was scheduled for installation via Roadworks.org, bringing up to 300Mb speeds to Chatteris, this will give people an option, rather than be tied to telephone line provided services, so I thought I’d start this blog.
This speed test was done on the 25 Feb 18 @ 14.14 by directly connecting a cable to the TalkTalk router to compare FTTC with Virgin Media FTTH:
Not to shabby performance for over copper wires.
Infrastructure Process
The infrastructure in my area was due to start on 4 August 17, expecting to last until the 14 August and I registered my interest in advance using Cable My Street.
My roads infrastructure work started on the 23 October 18 and was carried out very swiftly and with minimal mess considering the civil work required, the works was undertaken during school holidays to minimise any disruption, the crew were respectful of any request to get on and off the drive, also in my case I wanted the ‘Toby’ to be in a particular position, this wasn’t a problem and on the pictures below you can see the original point marking has been crossed out, and the new position marked as a red box.
VM installing my Toby
Time lapse video of Virgin Media installing FTTH infrastructure.
Details on how the Virgin Media infrastructure is installed (for developers but a great resource) is HERE (large file) and a general guide used for another town scheme is HERE.
The system we are getting from Virgin uses RF over Glass, with the infrastructure being installed by John Henry Group. This comprises of a fibre optic cable laid in a trench which is blown through a microduct tube from the nearest cabinet to the home after your order is placed.
I’ve included a YouTube video by EJC to show hows its done when the cameras are rolling.
Microbore tube showing fibre optic cable
The wrapped Red and Green double tube is installed from the VMVH1 hub cabinets to the Level 3 (L3) street cabinets via solid ducts. Each tube has an Outside Diameter (OD) is 12mm one tube is used to transport 24 core fibre optic cable, the other bore is spare.
Duct for transporting double Green/Red stripped microduct.
2. The single Red and Green has an OD of 8mm and carries 12 core fibre optic cable from the L3 cabinet to the Level 4 (L4) distribution board. The L3 cabinets are identified by having only two letter and two numbers stenciled on them.
Level 3 cabinet in St Martins Road
3. The Green microbore is 8mm OD and is ran from the L4 cabinet to each ‘Toby’ outside the property.
4. Black microbore is the same dimensions as the Green microbore and is used from the Toby at the pavement to the house Omnibox.
5. 1.1mm diameter single mode fibre optical cable containing two fibres, I stripped the fibre back in the above picture, from the factory the fibre is pre-terminated.
Connection method used in the street cabinet after the fibre has been blown in.
8mm straight couplings used to connect microducts.
The image below shows the microduct couplings in use within a pavement trench. Top picture taken at the junction of Dock Road and Bridges Street, bottom picture taken by the library shows a larger 12mm OD striped microduct.
Larger size microduct and coupling, (possibly for a multicore fibre, rather than a single fibre?).
The marker tape which is put over the buried Virgin Media infrastructure and serves two purposes, the first is to allow detection using a Cable Avoidance Tool (CAT), the marker tape has two metal wires bonded to it, so the route of the tape can be found and traced from the surface without excavation, the second purpose is to warn that you are about to unearth or hit cables should you be digging.
Nice swerve around 🙂
VMSDI Level 4 Open Cabinet Picture – undergoing second-fix.
VMSD1i – 535 W x 985 H x 330 D Distribution Cabinet 1 per 48 Homes (when used as L4)1 per 512 Homes (When used as L3) – Cabinet found locked in the open position 5/11/17
Click Map Pin on the corner of Ash Grove and High Street for more images of cabinet AF0113.
Great guy second fixing AG01 which is a Level 3 cabinet.
One of the towns two VMVH1 Nodal Cabinets
Newly installed VMVH1 – 1800 W x 1700 H x 650 D Nodal Cabinet (Virtual Hub)1 per 3000 Homes Approx. The yellow temporary cover was used to protect the hole before the VMVH1 cabinet was installed.
Inside VMVH1 supply pillar
Permission asked of road workers to take pictures, cabinet unlocked and open 18 Nov 17
Within the distribution board above is a smart RCD from Tii-Tech which is rather clever as it performs regular operational self tests to avoid the need for a person to visit the cabinet to do them.
End of Line Termination Boxes
From the street termination box, a microduct coupling is used to extend the duct from the street cabinet to your outside wall, the fibre once blown through is connected to a media converter within the externally mounted Omnibox
Showing the three different colours of Onmibox used in Chatteris, the last one is mine.
The media converter changes the fibres optical pulses of light into electrical data which a coaxial cable then takes to the Super Hub 3 Router and connectivity to the internet.
Cassette of single mode fibre, pre-terminated, up to 500m in increments of 25m are used dedpending on the distance from home to cabinet (25m, 50m, 75m, 100m, 125m, 150,m 300m & 500m).
This configuration will give data transfer speeds of up to 300Mbps, a basic outline of how it connects together is below, the VM Datacentre is in Wisbech and Chatteris is fed by a direct fiber from their:
Data centre to house
In advance of Virgin installing the infrastructure in the street I have put a conduit through the wall into a dry lining box with a blank please and installed a length of 20mm flexible conduit from the pavement Toby to the house wall, bit premature, but hey ho 🙂
Links to latest and archived Planning Permissions for Chatteris containing Virgin Media infrastructure works (remedial works have been excluded) :
Remedial works undertaken to the ducting infrastructure, pavement trenching made good and raised Toby’s lowered.
Update -11 Jan 2021
Damage to kit and check out how deep that fiber is as it crosses the lawn, so easy to damage!
The depth of the fiber pipe is about 40mm, so easy to damage if doing lawn maintenance!
Unfortunately the Omnibox is easily damaged/abused.
Update 1 July 2021
Openreach are installing the infrastructure for Ultra Fast Broadband, Virgin no longer has the monopoly on decent speeds which can only be good for the consumer.
How things change since 2018 when Virgin Media went live in Chatteris, the choice of Fibre to the Premises Ultrafast broadband Internet Service Providers is now a lot larger using Openreach fibre infrstructure.
The new kid on the block, (2023), is Netomnia with there own dedicated infrastructure and competitive pricing is displacing existing Virgin Media customers:
Who knows what’s next?
A blog about stuff that interests me or I have done.
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