Tech geek question... BT poles & cabinets
 

Hi, I am interested to know how BT telephone poles are wired up?

I look at my road (semi rural with big gaps between property clusters), cabinet at one end, then a pole say every 100 meters.

The cable comes from underground up the 1st pole (closest to cabinet) which has wires to the properties nearby.

Next post along, another cable comes up from underground, which splits off at the top to various properties close to the pole.

This scenario occurs at each pole right down the road.

The poles are not visibly 'connected' to each other i assume because its underground?

Is EACH pole independently linked to the cabinet, OR does the same cable run 'in series' up/down pole1, then up/down pole2,... and so on.

I am guessing it is a single cable (say 50 pairs) going up & down each pole, then on to the next one, or am I wrong? I think I can only see a single cable going up each pole?

Many thanks for any insight!

Re: Tech geek question... BT poles & cabinets
 

The simple answer is each phone line from every house goes directly all the way to the cabinet. The poles just hold the wires up. They're not linked to anything.

The cable going up each pole contains individual wires for every house (and a lot of spares). If it looks like just one cable it's simply a load of separate cables wrapped in a single bigger cable. They call it a bundle.

After all, the phone line coming into your house looks like just one cable, yet there are four or more wires inside it.

Re: Tech geek question... BT poles & cabinets
 

Oh wow. So each pole has a bundle of wires all the way underground back to the cabinet! whats the longest distance a house can be from cabinet?

Thanks

---------- Post added at 21:40 ---------- Previous post was at 21:36 ----------

Last question, last week a car hit a pole. Would Openrerach have to drag a new cable all the way underground back to the cabinet?

Re: Tech geek question... BT poles & cabinets
 

Miles.

Perhaps. Depends what's broken. There may also be junction boxes, drop points, and other sections along the way they could reconnect the cables to.

Re: Tech geek question... BT poles & cabinets
 

My folks' place is easily two miles away from the exchange, no cabinets and pretty much all overhead line. I have heard of even longer runs (3-4 miles) but at those lengths you can wave bye-bye to ADSL.