Prysmian Trial New Time Saving FTTP Broadband Kit in Rural Scotland

Prysmian UK, which specialises in the supply of fibre optic kit and cables, has teamed up with little-known ISP External Reality to trial their new pre-connectorised Compact Multifunction Joint (CMJ) closure on the rollout of a new Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) broadband network in rural Scotland.

The new network build is currently taking place through the Altyre Estate, across the Dava Way and towards Redhill – this is just south of Forres, which is a town and former royal burgh in the north of Scotland on the Moray coast. Nearby Rafford is also expected to be reached during the first quarter of 2023.

The related CMJ trial took place on Phase 2 of the project, which involves the installation of over 6km of fibre optic cable to 15 properties in the area between the Atyre Estate and Rafford. To date, External Reality has installed over 6km of fibre, complete with fibre closures manufactured by Prysmian.

External Reality is understood to have tried pre-connectorised closures from other manufacturers, but they apparently found these to be “quite inflexible” and “did not work particularly well“. Local contractors had already buried the ducting and External Reality had installed the pre-terminated cable, so installation was simply a matter of plugging in the fibre to the pre-connectorised Prysmian CMJ closure, saving both splicing and installation time.

A fibre connection from the new CMJ closure then connects to a Prysmian Hybrid Drop Box (HDB4) on the outside of each property to enable the final connection. Apparently, the closure helped make significant time savings on the installation.

Richard Allan, MD of External Reality, said:

“By being able to use pre-terminated blown fibre, we’re saving between 45 minutes to an hour installation time per property.

We’ve been using Prysmian SJCs (Small Joint Closures), UMJs (Ultra Compact Multi Function Joints) and CMJs and found them to be really good for spliced connections. What was missing, until now, was a pre-connectorised joint closure, because we’ve started to use pre-terminated cables to speed up final deployment to individual properties.

We don’t work in big built-up areas, instead we’re often targeting about 20 or so properties spread over 2 or 3 kilometres. I know splicing has become pretty straightforward, but there is the prep-time involved and you don’t want to be sat in the corner of a field in the cold splicing if you can help it, so pre-terminated cables and pre-connectorised closures helps simplify and speed the installation.”

We don’t normally cover semi-product announcements like this, as they can be a bit too promotional and are of a lower interest to our consumer-centric readership. But this one was informative and mixed with an interesting rural fibre build / internet provider, which we haven’t previously covered.

The operator is planning to predominantly use GPON over blown fibre to provide this service, though as coverage increases, some areas may include wireless broadband coverage using Terragraph 60GHz based wireless systems.

Customers pay from £36 per month for a 35Mbps package (burst to 60Mbps), which rises to £66 for 150Mbps (bursts to 250Mbps), and installation can be at least £480 or more (Scotland’s the voucher scheme will usually make this free). Suffice to say, it’s not the cheapest or the fastest, but then this is a very rural location and the provider is still learning.

Now for the technical marketing bit, which is probably of more interest to Alternative Networks.

Description of Prysmian’s Kit

Prysmian’s pre-connectorised XMJ closure range for jointing optical fibre cables consists of the CMJ with 12 SC/24 LC adapters and MMJ with 24 SC/48 LC adapters. The joint is ideal for use as a final drop solution due to its capacity and compact size. It has a maximum capacity of 72 fibres (MMJ). The connectorized pigtails are factory fitted and each tray can accommodate up to 12 spliced fibres. The single element 2.2 tray also has the ability to house up to 1×1:8 splitter.

A multi-functional bracket can be supplied with the joint which enables wall or pole mounting of the joint vertically or horizontally. The joint has four circular ports for mechanical entry glands, one oval port for heat shrink or mechanical entry and two additional small circular ports also for heat shrink entry.the innovative Flexibox range of compact and flexible enclosures for internal and external Fibre-to-the-Home (FTTH) and Fibre-to-the-Antenna (FTTA) applications.