Which is the virgin street cabinet?

[TJS]

There is this one about 100 meters from my house

http://i.imgur.com/7M2Ul.jpg

(I blocked the numbers out as they seemed that they could be used in some way to identify location but its a 5 digit number then a forward slash then a 3 digit number)

then this one; at the end of the street about 200 meter away

http://i.imgur.com/yf37Z.jpg

[kwikbreaks]

All the ones I've seen are pointy top green and tend to have a cover nearby with CATV on it but it will probably vary from area to area as different companies did the builds.

[asbo dog]

first one looks as thoe its a vm cab but the second i would say is bt's, dont hold me to that thoe.

as said the biggest give away is the man hole covers having catv

[TJS]

Hmm; this area is EX- NYNEX, Cable & wireless, Telewest + NTL; going by the markings on the phone sockets + cable in box's in the house

What do you mean by a cover with CATV on it?

---------- Post added at 16:11 ---------- Previous post was at 16:08 ----------

Originally Posted by asbo dog

first one looks as thoe its a vm cab but the second i would say is bt's, dont hold me to that thoe.

as said the biggest give away is the man hole covers having catv

The first one doesn't have a manhole cover near it at all; but further down the street there is another one thats pretty much identical with the same numbering system on it which has a manhole right infront of it

http://i.imgur.com/cNPY1.png

---------- Post added at 16:13 ---------- Previous post was at 16:11 ----------

http://i.imgur.com/Oj9tU.png *this is the one from the first picture

[The Installer]

The first picture you posted is a VM cab, the second is BT

[kwikbreaks]

If the lighter grey bits on the covers in your first picture have the letters CATV on them then pound to a penny that is a VM street cab. If the other one has the same numbering system then I'd say that is too.

The flat top one looks like a BT cab to me too but as neither train nor cab spotting figures highly in my list of interests I too can't be sure.

My own local council seem to think that re-tarmaccing paths is far too expensive (along with sweeping them) so the route taken by the ducting my own cable runs in up the street to the cab is easily visible.

[*sloman*]

http://i.imgur.com/yf37Z.jpg = BT

http://i.imgur.com/7M2Ul.jpg = looks like all the VM cabs in my area, but mine are green and covered in graffiti

all here: http://www.telephonesuk.co.uk/wiring_cabs.htm

[TJS]

Thankyou

sorry for the weird question but the geeky side of me couldn't help but want to know where everything connects LOL

---------- Post added at 17:14 ---------- Previous post was at 17:11 ----------

p.s.

any idea why the cabinet closest to my house doesn't have a manhole in-front of it; but the one a bit further down does? whats actually under the covers?

I'm wondering if many the cab closest to me is linked to the one further up the road perhaps

also i live in a relatively rural area I'm not sure if this makes any difference; but the village i'm in has about 40 houses if that; then where the other street cab up the road (with the manhole cover) is part of the 'main village/town' which where i live links on to (kinda confusing LOL)

[JayJay]

Nothing interesting in the pits, just cables, dirt, and other nasties! The odd glove from engineers too! ;-)

You may find the manhole could be on the road.

[Sephiroth]

Originally Posted by TJS

Thankyou

sorry for the weird question but the geeky side of me couldn't help but want to know where everything connects LOL

---------- Post added at 17:14 ---------- Previous post was at 17:11 ----------

p.s.

any idea why the cabinet closest to my house doesn't have a manhole in-front of it; but the one a bit further down does? whats actually under the covers?

I'm wondering if many the cab closest to me is linked to the one further up the road perhaps

also i live in a relatively rural area I'm not sure if this makes any difference; but the village i'm in has about 40 houses if that; then where the other street cab up the road (with the manhole cover) is part of the 'main village/town' which where i live links on to (kinda confusing LOL)
(SEPH): Interesting. Not many rural areas are covered by VM. Where are you located?

I can answer some of your questions. As others have stated, the top picture is the VM cabinet.

There are two types of cabinet:

1. Every 200 m apart (in my area at least), they serve the 50 or so homes passed (could be more in densely populated areas). These put copper into the homes and are connected by copper to an aggregating cabinet.

2. Several of the street boxes described above feed to an Optical Node. That street box should have a 240V warning on the cabinet because it is directly powered. In an area like mine, it's less than 500 homes passed per optical node. In densely populated areas it could be as high as 2,000 homes passed. Performance will differ between those extremes. The optical node converts the copper RF to optical signals.

The fibre goes back to a local VM data centre where it aggregates with other fibres from other localities. The fibre distance can be quite high, like the distance between Bracknell and Reading - some 13 miles. The fibres go through equipment that converts the optical signal back to RF and then they land onto line cards in the CMTS. The CMTS is a big FO cable modem! My area, Reading, has 23 CMTSs serving a catchment of around ¼ million people (I don't know the percentage of connected homes).

The pinch points are the local optical node when an area is oversubscribed and the line card when the areas concerned are all running flat out. VM are busy installing new line cards with much higher capacity and throughput, allowing more channels and thus reduced congestion. Every so often, VM resegment an area. That is they redistribute localities across line cards to provide better load balancing.

The signal carried along the copper is both TV and internet. Your own home receives every signal transmitted to your locality. Only signals addressed to your cable modem go past the BPI+ filter in your modem; everything else is discarded.

And that's a horribly simplified description!

[TJS]

Thank you


+ I live in the stoke on trent area theres quite a few small villages around the borders of stoke which get covered by virgin; a couple of the phone sockets inside my house say "NYNEX" on them so its been covered since the 80s

What do the buildings look like where all the cable modems connect? Is it anything to do with the phone exchange or is that strictly BT lines; because the phone exchange is about 800 meters from my house.

Had a quick walk down the street with the box thats closest to me and I can only see about 7/8 houses with the brown cable box on the side of them LOL

[Sephiroth]

The data centres aren't advertised for security reasons. The one in Reading is absolutely non-descript. It'll be as place on an industrial estate (of sorts) with VM vans parked on the hard standing. VM phones have nothing to do with BT phones. Totally separate.

If your village is a long way from anywhere else (like more than half a mile), I'd say that the box you pictured was an optical node. It looks large enough given that it serves only 40 homes.

[TJS]

Does this mean that my contention ratio will be an absolute maximum of 40:1; or does it not work like this for contention?

[Sephiroth]

Now you're getting difficult! I'll leave you to Google "broadband contention ratio". To my mind it's a budget set by the ISP according to expectesd uage for the provided infrastucture.

I can tell you this, based on my area, 40 homes passed per street box will have low contention particualrly as it might well be that you also have fibre to serve those 40 homes. Of course 4 or 5 menaces can easily swallow the bandwidth by constantly downloading or uploading.

So nw tell us, what's happening with your broadband?

[kwikbreaks]

Originally Posted by Sephiroth

The pinch points are the local optical node when an area is oversubscribed...

Would I be right in guessing that this is the situation which takes ages to get fixed? I'm guessing the way out would be to add another optical node or at least an additional fibre back to the CMTS.

---------- Post added at 07:49 ---------- Previous post was at 07:46 ----------

Originally Posted by *sloman*

all here: http://www.telephonesuk.co.uk/wiring_cabs.htm

well just look at that - a website dedicated to cab spotters