Seems to be a growing problem with fibre installs. There's a lot of subcontractors that are not exclusive to VM. After all fibre is fibre. My question is when a cable is pulled how easy is it to break the internal glass fibre? At the moment I'm happy with my HFC, but one day I know I will have to make the switch. Do VM use telegraph poles? In my area community fibre are the local fibre company and they have some equipment mounted on the pole .
The external fibre is quite robust, as it is sheathed in a sort of armour. The internal fibre, not so much and can be damaged by e.g. too small a bend radius. However, unless your dog/rabbit/children are chewing/swinging on it. I wouldn't worry ;-)
The fibre connecting cable inside the home could be damaged by kinking, it is similar in robustness to an optical cable used for digital audio. These cables have plugs on both ends so are quick and easy to replace.
We are an RFoG street, we have 150m of fibre from the street cabinet to the house, the fibre is run in a green "micro-bore tube" which is tough and resistant to casual damage, for us this is buried under the ground only appearing for about 15cm under the Omnibox.
Where VM are deploying XGS-PON from telegraph poles appears to be in streets where there are already OpenReach telegraph poles or possibly mains power poles in place & no history of HFC or RFoG. The external fibre runs in a black "micro-bore tube" from a passive optical splitter on the telegraph pole to the home.
VM are only using telegraph poles where there is no existing VM underground ducting. If you are in a legacy HFC area, you will either already have, or will shortly see, new fibre cabinets being installed alongside the HFC ones. Both will use the same ducts & boundary tees to connect to customers houses.
