There has been some work done recently in our area, adding new cabinets, the project code on the works is NK128FIBREUP-SHEFFXQOIAF (if it helps). It doesn't appear they have pulled / blown any fibre yet as there are still some coffin tops at some of the new cabinet sites. I was wondering if there are any ROUGH timescales for completion of the work and for the FTTP XGS-PON network to available to order services on?
Ditto Cardiff works ref
NK128WHIT-X-BP03AF
and project ref
NK128FU
if possible please.
Forum TeamHi there handsomeinked
Thank you so much for your post and welcome back to the forums, it's great to have you here.
We are currently upgrading our network but we’re not able to give any further information as to when existing customers will be able to migrate over to XGS-PON.
As soon as we have any further information, we will let customers know.
@Ahsleigh_C thanks for coming back. I understand with so much upgrade work going on it's tough to be able to give timescales. The work is certainly progressing a pace. There's one section with what looks like two larger cabs being stalled and they still have coffin tops so I assume once those are setup the fibre will be getting blown/pulled.
There are multiple stages involved here. New cabinets are built next to existing ones, microducts are wriggled through the ducts to the cabinets, fibre is blown through and spliced. There is kit to be installed in the cabinets and upgrades needed in the hub site. Once an area is ready VM will start to offer broadband over fibre and using the hub 5X. I very much doubt whether anyone on this forum knows about timescales so you'll just have to wait but, having said that, I'm most certainly expecting some areas to be ready for sale this year.
My area Wigan is the same fibreupgrade work everywhere at the moment
i wonder how long until it goes live my contract is up in may 2gb xgspon might keep me ,if it’s any better than fttp via bt etc is it newer technology?
Openreach has GPON but is migrating I believe to XGS-PON.
So they will basically end up the same but vm,s inferior customer services ?
Eventually most will end up with XGS-PON, so the differentiators will be the ISPs' services provided (like broadband, phone, Pay TV, VoD, etc), prices and customer service.
With the intriguing future possibile scenario of having a VM Xgs-pon connection via a high quality ISP like A&A https://www.ispreview.co.uk/index.php/2024/02/broadband-isps-react-to-virgin-media-o2-uk-going-wholesale.html#respond
In Leicester its dead, no activity here at all, the area was late for Openreach as well with half the city only having cityfibre for PON, so it wouldnt surprise me if VM give it low priority.
I think it would be for VMs benefit though to release a schedule, we know dates can be missed, but thats still vastly superior to keeping everyone in the dark.
VM has its rollout which has nothing to do with Openreach. The deadline for overbuilding the current network is end-2028, so Leicester will be done - but I don't have the schedule.
Im a XGSPON customer, and there was no additional cabinets installed in my area, and there is no requirement to do so. The serving cabinet for XGSPON can be miles away in another village as light can travel over greater distances than copper. Also, as they are using Openreach's ducts they would need to potentially dig up the road and modify openreach's inground ducting to route to a new cabinet, and i'm not quite sure thats permitted on the PIA service from Openreach, so i highly doubt those cabinets are anything to do with Nexfibre.
Look at the top of the Openreach telegraph poles, if you see a fairly large black box thats been recently installed, that is a Nexfibre CBT. (A fibre connection point). - All Nexfibre's work (AFAIK) are delivered using PIA scheme. PIA (Physical Infrastructure Access) is a service provided by Openreach where other Altnet's are able to utilise BT's existing inground ducting, and poles to run their fibre to homes.
The only real way of telling if Nexfibre are in your area is to look on https://bidb.uk under 'roadwork providers' you will see Nexfibre, and then check on the telegraph poles for the black CBT, or yellow identification tags on the fibre cables going up the telegraph poles, it will say something along the lines of 'Property of Virgin Media'.
I have a feeling you may be in an area where Virgin themself are upgrading from HFC, and you may find you will get put onto RFoG which is marginally better than HFC. - Once you have RFoG you can easily be switched to XGSPON or GPON depending on which service VM chose to send over the fibre to your property.
Hope some of this info helps.
The nexfibre network is being built by a combination of PIA and their own ducts and cabinets. Under PIA Openreach's ducts and poles can be used, so nextfibre can install its CBTs in joint boxes as well as on poles.
Project Mustang is about overbuilding the HFC network with fibre, and as this is being done by wriggling fibre microducts through the existing duct network there are new cabinets being installed next to existing ones. When it goes live it will be XGS-PON and not RFoG.
Roger you are indeed correct, this is an HFC overbuild area and we have multiple new cabs with lovely VM chamber covers on the ground outside them. I'm not sure if our FTTP is live as we have had no word. But on speaking to the engineer terminating the fibre at the cab it certainly has been "blown" down VM's microducts.
Although much of VM's new network is ready to go live the ordering/billing sytem to handle the migration from the DOCSIS to XGS-PON networks is not. So, all of VM's XGS-PON customers are on nexfibre which has VM as its anchor - and currently sole - tenant.
PIA is a service offered by Openreach which lets other approved companies utilise their already built in-ground duct network and poles.
Opening up the earth and modifying openreachs ducts is not permitted under PIA and why would it when PIA is basically a rental service, you have no ownership over them ducts so opening them up to add your own cabinets would be well outside of that agreement.
You don’t need cabinets every street like with HFC or VDSL, Singlemode fibre travels for miles where there will probably be a cable vault which connects Nexfibre to Openreachs in ground duct network.
My XGSPON connection comes from a village a few miles away, my village has around 350-400 homes, not a single cabinet was erected in my area. Cabinets are old, they aren’t needed anymore with fibre.
Suttonscloud, I totally understand that fibre can run for miles however unless I am hallucinating and have been for the last however long since I first posted. We have cabinets for fibre that have been built by VM, I even spoke with the engineers installing them, so trust me when I say, they are VM assets. However, without being privy to the exact network architecture, I can't say with 100% certainty but, I would expect the larger ones are where the master fibre connection back to the local datacenter/headend come in and are split and then blown down the VM ducting to the street level micro cabs. With FTTP, you are not connected directly on the master fibre back to the datacenter, these are all split and multiple properties will all share the bandwidth on a single master fibre. The only time you wouldn't share a fibre would be a leased line and even then there will be junctions along the way where you go from a local fibre to a wider area etc. Nobody in their right mind would lay a single run of fibre without segmenting the network up so as a break in one fibre can easily be routed around so the impact of any break can be minimised.
I wouldn’t get overly excited as we have had the new FTTP cabinets for over a year at least. Nothing since. The other problem is we have a toby on the footpath but the cable from it to our property is just stuck in the garden without any conduit about 50mm deep. In contrast the Openreach connection is about 150mm deep in proper sheathed conduit. So to get any VM fibre they would have to dig up the garden again and put in fibre conduit.
I remember seeing horror stories about VM laying cables across driveways and gardens and absolute mission length attempts to get them to come and bury the cable correctly as it should have been.
I think VM have cost cut for a few years now with their infrastructure; and it’s now starting to bite them in the backside as i can’t imagine you’re the only person experiencing this issue.
Yes the two techs just stuck a spade in the grass, wiggled a trench, dropped the cable in and stamped the grass over again. Job done. In fairness Openreach had to put in a conduit as the old copper lines are all DIG in my area. They did a sterling job by comparison.
Jeez, that's less than optimal, Although I suspect most folks with VM (ex. CabelTel, NyNex etc) will be in relatively similar situations with ending up with garden/drive being dug up. There's a house round the corner where the green microducting is visible running down the side of a flower bed! lol. BT have gone for using the existing telegraph poles here to deliver to the property.
