Normal Procedure?

[VMboy]

Is it normal procedure to leave a Virgin Media cable pavement box plate open if the engineer needs to go away to an exchange perhaps?

The red barricade is in place for safety, but as it is a wet day I didn't think it was wise for this not to be covered in these rainy conditions.

Thoughts please.

Sorry if this isn't in the correct section.

[weesteev]

As long as it is signed and gaurded appropriatley then it should be ok (from a health and safety point of view). If its raining then its not very wise but for short periods of time then it will be ok. The chambers arent water tight so will have some water ingress at some time in thier lives, all connections (540/860 coax and copper) are shrink wrpped at the joints so water ingress shouldnt be an issue and the Telco BOM's are sealed (if its a SID area). Unless Noah's ark is required then rain shouldnt cause an issue to an open pit.

[VMboy]

Originally Posted by weesteev

As long as it is signed and gaurded appropriatley then it should be ok (from a health and safety point of view). If its raining then its not very wise but for short periods of time then it will be ok. The chambers arent water tight so will have some water ingress at some time in thier lives, all connections (540/860 coax and copper) are shrink wrpped at the joints so water ingress shouldnt be an issue and the Telco BOM's are sealed (if its a SID area). Unless Noah's ark is required then rain shouldnt cause an issue to an open pit.

Thanks mate, I was just curious, by the way what does SID stand for?

[weesteev]

SID is an architecture type used in Telecoms by both BT and Virgin. It releates to the the Telephony architecture, you can tell as the pit lids will have a little badge with the Kite symbol (British Standard) and a stamp that says SID. Newer BT covers and Virgin SID areas will display this but only if the pit lids are elss than 10 years old.

There is also CAB architecture (also known as SBD) where the termination points arent normally in chambers in the ground outside your home but an entire cable run from the home back to a small cabinet (or pedestal) where the customer connection points are. This tends to be more commonly found in ex-NTL areas but is also found in small pockets of ex-Telewest areas as well.

BT uses SID architecture for its underground deployment, you will find an enclosure (referred to as a Bomb) with D side connections where customer conenctions first terminate (before heading to an E-side connection at the nearest cabinet (or distribution point).

http://www.hellermanntyton.co.uk/doc...logue_0809.pdf

See page 25 onwards of above document for more details.

Hope this helps

[VMboy]

Thank you.

[jungleguy]

Weesteev in new build do you still use SID architecture?

[weesteev]

Yes, we have to build to the existing network architecture. We cant just alter how we distribute services from a node unfortunately.

[jb66]

Originally Posted by VMboy

Is it normal procedure to leave a Virgin Media cable pavement box plate open if the engineer needs to go away to an exchange perhaps?

The red barricade is in place for safety, but as it is a wet day I didn't think it was wise for this not to be covered in these rainy conditions.

Thoughts please.

Sorry if this isn't in the correct section.

Most of the pits in edinburgh are half full of water anyway

[weesteev]

Originally Posted by jb66

Most of the pits in edinburgh are half full of water anyway

Haha, i can imagine half the pits in the UK are full when it rains! Its hard to keep water from ingressing into these chambers, espcially chambers from the days of main build! Needless to say, all equiment in these chambers should be water resistent (to a certain degree).

[Dave_]

Huge areas of the uddingston franchise have horrific water ingress , i had 7 jobs in the one street where an amp blew due to water.

Would help if installers carried rubber o-rings to help keep the water out the bom too.