Go Fibre and Upp Adopt New UK Full Fibre Street Cabinets

Network technology firm Xantaro has revealed that they’ve launched a new “turnkey street cabinet” solution, which is designed to support UK alternative networks with their rollout of gigabit-capable Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) broadband infrastructure, and it’s already been adopted by ISPs GoFibre and Upp (now acquired by nexfibre).

Most of us just think of street cabinets as those dull boxes that sit on pavements, and if that’s true then you might want to move on to another news item. But for AltNets there are a lot of different variations to choose from and each has its own mix of pros and cons. Xantaro appears to be trying to give such providers a compact and lower cost option, which can be used in both urban and rural environments.

The new cabinet (1400(h) x 1575(w) x 775(d) [mm]) is designed to serve over 8,000 homes and features three doors, offering secure separate access to power, passive equipment and active equipment. Xantaro’s solution also uses a heat exchange, rather than an external air cooler, which they suggest means “better protection from environmental elements, less noise pollution and requiring less maintenance.”

Key Features

Reliability: The AC meter compartment in the cabinet can be used for fault detection, enabling prompt maintenance. In the event of power outages, the cabinet can obtain 3-4 hours of battery backup. It can also connect to an external generator to keep it running for longer.

Security: The cabinet can be customised to utilise Finnish lock manufacturer, iLOQ self-powered digital locking and NFC-enabled mobile access management solutions. iLOQ’s battery-free locking solutions not only maximises cabinet security and minimises maintenance costs, but it also reduces battery waste. iLOQ provides an audit trail of who has accessed the cabinet and when. The cabinet also has detectors to sound relevant alarms (e.g., door contact, battery temperature, cooling alarm, smoke detector, power failure).

Energy efficiency: heat exchange cabinets are more energy-efficient because they do not rely on power-hungry air-con units, which reduces emissions and the need to change filters – enabling cost savings. The AC meter can monitor the cabinet’s energy efficiency, allowing technicians to identify areas for power optimisation.

Customisation: Xantaro can provide OOB (Out of Band) management solutions for remote access, centralised OTDR test heads, aggregation solutions and backhaul solutions.

The company says they also offer a fully managed end-to-end service, including pre-cable for additional equipment and external management solutions (where maintenance teams can dial in over a 4G connection so that the solution can be reconfigured remotely).

Stephen Kingdom, CTO at Xantaro, said:

“Following extensive research and development, we are proud to offer our Xantaro street cabinet that addresses the unyielding need for FTTH across the UK, while also building more sustainable networks for the future. With the market as competitive as it is, this best-in-class and economical solution will enable altnets to unlock new revenue opportunities and deliver connectivity to both those who need it most.”

Both Upp and GoFibre seem to like the new cabinet, which they describe as being reliable, secure and energy-efficient, but otherwise there’s not a lot more to say. Street cabinets aren’t really the most exciting of topics and we tend to be more interested in what they put inside, but it makes for a bit of a change to talk about the cabinet itself.

GoFibre are deploying a 10Gbps capable full fibre broadband service across the North of England and Scottish Borders, while Upp were doing something similar in the East of England – until nexfibre (Virgin Media O2) acquired them in September 2023 (here).