ntl budget cutbacks

[LostintheNW]

Isnt this going to cost NTL more in the long run though? if peoples service ends up going off and its not fixed for awhile they will start demanding some form of compensation and if its thousands of people....then thats going to rack up.

[injuneer]

I think Broadcast or National Transcommunications Ltd as they are now to be called in the interim (Funny, don't those initials spell NTL?) are contracted to do maintenance for Ntl for 2 years as part of the sale agreement.
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Originally Posted by LostintheNW

Isnt this going to cost NTL more in the long run though? if peoples service ends up going off and its not fixed for awhile they will start demanding some form of compensation and if its thousands of people....then thats going to rack up.

Ahh, now you are thinking like a rational person, unfortunately that doesn't seem to happen in the world of large corporations.

[Escapee]

Originally Posted by injuneer

I think Broadcast or National Transcommunications Ltd as they are now to be called in the interim (Funny, don't those initials spell NTL?) are contracted to do maintenance for Ntl for 2 years as part of the sale agreement.

National Transcommunication LTD is what they were called when CableTel bought them in the late 90's.

The whole thing kicked off when Ocom Communications came over here in the early-mid 90's looking to start up a Mobile telephone network, they had missed the boat but decided these new cable franchise licences looked like a good bet. They formed a company called International CableTel, they actually had a holding company and lots of regional CableTel companies, after a few years they bought NTL (note capitols) National Transcommunications LTD. The NTL company was the old Home office, IBA etc that was privatised by Maggie in the 80's, around 84-85 as far as I remember.

They used NTL on the company acrs and vans but later changed the NTL for home/residential to ntl, they probably paid a consultant a few hundred thousand to come up with that one, then the rest is history. I remember a thread running on another site where an ntl employee reckoned ntl didn't stand for anything! We all know different though.

I guess the NTL ie: National Transcommunications LTD is still a limited company operating under the ntl umberella, and thats how they will sell it off. With the old cable franchises, the franchise was not transferrable to another company, and thats why they were cautious and had them all as seperate limited companies operating under a holding company.

Sorry if I have bored anyone.

[Ignition]

Speaking to someone in another cable company about this:

We have a headend Tech constantly watching the noise floors, he calls us if he see's something going on. We had an outage last week due to someone stealing cable, the noise floor took down an entire node. We have 2 guys right now going the EVERY piece of equipment in a given node. I take on the stuff the service guys can't fix...If I have 3 problems same node different area's i'll spend a day going through the whole node (never usually hear back from them again). When I finished work last week I was working on leakage. Also the company is putting some of us Techs through more schooling.

Anyways yes we are actively Monitoring locally, I actually have VPN access to the NMC here so I monitor things when Im bored. I work on alot of leakage, the other guys are working node to node right now...And also the entire system City and County is under a 870mhz Upgrade/ rebuild.

[Escapee]

Originally Posted by Ignition

Speaking to someone in another cable company about this:

I can tell thats not ntl.

I think the big problem for network maintenance, is the perceived impression by customer service management types, that an engineer without a list of ten service calls is sat on his backside drinking coffee. Some ntl areas have very bad return path problems, I was told by someone on this site that the practice of fitting an attenuator to the return path monitoring system, gives the NMC the impression that the noise floor is lower than it actually is!

I knew that was going on over two years ago in some poor ntl regions, engineering is not an ntl strong point. The managers in charge of engineering functions unfortunately don't seem to have any clout, they will only be able to show stats (the only thing guys at the top understand) when things go terribly wrong. I think then it will be too late, because engineers will of been made redundant or left of their own free will, and the skills will be lost.
Right now I think the management have their head buried deeper in the sand than ever, however the money problems wouldn't allow them to do anything if they realised whats going on.

We used to run routines in South Wales for noise floor measurements off our own backs, this stopped after the BNMC was created, the Broadband NMC was to be the dogs danglies in looking after the state of the network. I now understand however that due to company politics and empire building the BNMC have no teeth, they are unable to raise tickets to get problems sorted and the engineers are only rolled on faults that customers are complaining about. The BNMC are/should be capable of spotting potential service affecting problems and get them nipped in the bud before customers are affected, this is not happening, and it's rumoured that the BNMC will close because they are not providing a usefull function!

They are not providing a usefull function because lack of money and company politics are stopping them.

[Ignition]

The BNMC's main mission appears to be stats collection, they are not even 24x7. They don't have anywhere near enough man power to even hope to manage the RF network.
The FMS that is 24x7 has a few issues that I won't go into too much.

[Juan]

Originally Posted by injuneer

Ntl switch sites & hub sites have diesel engines but there have been instances where they didn't start on mains fail. (usually due to lack of regular routine maintenance, the power staff are stretched to the limit). BT have also had engines that don't start/catch fire for the same reasons I expect!
If power fails to an ntl cabinet they usually bring in a petrol genny which keeps the neighbours awake all night, until someone decides to pinch it. The batteries wouldn't last more than a couple of hours assuming they were in good nick anyway.
Maintenance & engineers are dirty words to corporate bean counters. We don't install or sell anything so are viewed as non-productive. Happens in most companies unfortunately. Nothing lasts forever but doesn't last at all without maintenance.

But if an engine failed to start in a BT exchange that would have an effect on customer service, they would get an engineer there to fix it.

They also do regular engine runs to check the engines r working OK, these r done remotely and with maintenance engineers visiting the exchange.

[injuneer]

Originally Posted by Juan

But if an engine failed to start in a BT exchange that would have an effect on customer service, they would get an engineer there to fix it.

They also do regular engine runs to check the engines r working OK, these r done remotely and with maintenance engineers visiting the exchange.

One would hope so but I have friends who still work in BT who can tell you that the bean counter mentality also prevails there!! I would expect BT's battery strings are in better conditition than some of ntl's so would be able to handle the load until an engineer could attend to start the engine.

[Juan]

Originally Posted by injuneer

One would hope so but I have friends who still work in BT who can tell you that the bean counter mentality also prevails there!! I would expect BT's battery strings are in better conditition than some of ntl's so would be able to handle the load until an engineer could attend to start the engine.

I agree but it doesn't seem to be to the same degree as the NTL cutbacks judging by what I've read on here. One thing is that loads of overtime is paid out to cope with faults and the ADSL volumes.

There's also the point that BT's backup batteries r stored in less extreme conditions being in an exchange building than in a street cabinet. They've also been taking on extra power engineers in some parts of the country lately to cope with the amount of maintenance work they have.

[injuneer]

Originally Posted by Juan

I agree but it doesn't seem to be to the same degree as the NTL cutbacks judging by what I've read on here. One thing is that loads of overtime is paid out to cope with faults and the ADSL volumes.

There's also the point that BT's backup batteries r stored in less extreme conditions being in an exchange building than in a street cabinet. They've also been taking on extra power engineers in some parts of the country lately to cope with the amount of maintenance work they have.

I was talking about the batteries on the switch sites not the ones in the cabinets !! Some of them have been in for about 10 years now and are well past their sell by date !!

[Escapee]

Originally Posted by injuneer

I was talking about the batteries on the switch sites not the ones in the cabinets !! Some of them have been in for about 10 years now and are well past their sell by date !!

yes they are getting old now, I guess most switch sites/headends are drawing about 1000 amps of current from batteries for the telco gear these days. (judging by the last I remember from Cardiff switch as an example) It doesn't take a genuis to realise that the batteries are only desgined to keep things going for a very short time until the generator kicks in. I think another big difference between ntl and BT is the number of switch sites they have, ntl tended to put all the eggs in one big basket. Cardiff had one switch site, but I seem to remember being told BT had about six in the area. In Cardiff ntl also put all the concentrators in the Switch/headend and not out in the hubsites like most other areas, this of course is extra load for the batteries/ups when a power outage occurs.

ntl's network is generally not as resilint as BT's, and ntl came unstuck a few times in south wales with the few large business customer contracts they won. I know they lost one contract with a big customer due to switch congestion and another due to a fibre being cut, and they had lied to the customer telling them there was a diverse fibre feeding the area just to get the sale!

I know there was some clear-up civils work to complete some rings, so thats probably not the case now. Still though east and west fibres running in the same hubsite trays or the same ducts is not a very good idea.

[injuneer]

I think only Cabletel areas had remote subscriber concentrators at hubsites as far as I know. Nynex, Videotron & Bell Cable never adopted this method believing it was unneccesary with high capacity fibres.
Of course you have to remember that BT still has the majority of fixed line customers. Their exchange capacities are similar as they use the same types in a lot of cases. Ntl have about 100 switches, BT probably 10 times that.

I'm sure BT had about 700 switch sites when I worked for them, but that is a long while ago now, so it may be wrong.

[Juan]

Originally Posted by Paul M

I'm sure BT had about 700 switch sites when I worked for them, but that is a long while ago now, so it may be wrong.

Every BT exchange has Switch equipment in it, so wouldn't they all be classed as switch sites?

According to http://www.samknows.com/broadband/ there are 5591 exchanges.

[Escapee]

Originally Posted by injuneer

I think only Cabletel areas had remote subscriber concentrators at hubsites as far as I know. Nynex, Videotron & Bell Cable never adopted this method believing it was unneccesary with high capacity fibres.
Of course you have to remember that BT still has the majority of fixed line customers. Their exchange capacities are similar as they use the same types in a lot of cases. Ntl have about 100 switches, BT probably 10 times that.

I think South Wales was probably the only area with concentrators all located in the headend/switch, I visited a few hubs in other cabletel areas and the concs were in the hubs. I think this was a regional thing decided by the network operations manager from day one. I think the planning capacity people then decided they didn't need as much fibre around the hub ring, there was talk of moving the concentrators out to the hubs many years ago, but the amount of fibres as well as cost at a time when money was short made it a no go.

Hindsight a wonderful thing

PS: I think the original decision was to site all the equipment at one location, so one switch tech could look after it and never have to leave the site. That is however a redundant plan as there are now more switch sites than techs, I think they are losing another tech in South Wales now taking them down to three switch techs for the whole of South Wales.
(I can not guarantee my figures for 3 switch techs, but think it's the case)