On the other hand Openreach<\/a> continue to deploy a variety of hybrid fibre-based (FTTC<\/a> etc.) services to near universal levels of coverage, while their latest FTTP<\/a> based ultrafast broadband technology should reach 15 million UK premises by around 2025. On top of that they also have a few million premises covered by hybrid fibre G.fast<\/a>.<\/p>\n Suffice to say that some local streets are starting to become cluttered and yet many people will understandably struggle to identify what is actually being installed in their neighbourhood(s). As a result of that we’ve put together a simplified guide to help you identify some or all of the kit being installed.<\/p>\n Take note that a lot of infrastructure can be hidden beneath the ground, which can make pictures somewhat useless. Instead we’ve endeavoured to help identify the bits and bobs that you’re more likely to see with your own eyes, which we’ve roughly ordered by operator and technology type. Over time, and with the help of our readers, we aim to expand this list.<\/p>\n One other point to make is that there’s a growing market for alternative network providers, which sometimes use similar kit and thus a cursory visual inspection isn’t always enough. Likewise a number of areas have also experimented with wrapping cabinets in custom vinyl or painted prints (here<\/a> and here<\/a>) and that can make them harder to identify.<\/p>\n Generally the kit you see from Virgin will vary depending upon whether your area is being served by their Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP<\/a>) or Hybrid Fibre Coax (HFC) Cable network, although nearly all of their modern street furniture tends to be coloured in a greyish cream (this helps to keep their hardware cool and to differentiate them from Openreach<\/a>).<\/p>\n However some of their older street furniture, which was inherited from the NTL and Telewest days, is still coloured green and they can optionally colour new cabinets green.<\/p>\n VMDDx (e.g. VMDD1\/HP1 – VMDD3\/HP3 or VMDD3i)<\/strong><\/p>\n These cabinets are for either Virgin’s Hybrid Fibre Coax (HFC) or FTTP network and come in various different sizes, albeit with broadly the same cosmetic appearance. The cabinets can help to serve as few as 60 homes or as many as 1024 and either contain distribution kit or distribution and nodal kit. DD1 and 2 are larger than DD3.<\/p>\n VMSD1 \/ VMSD1i<\/strong><\/p>\n A smaller distribution or amplifier cabinet that is again used for either HFC or FTTP (SD1i). Such cabinets can help to serve as few as 30 homes by themselves or be used to support others in connecting up to a total of 512. One catch here is that Virgin can also use the same chassis to act as a dedicated power cabinet, such as for the next beast.<\/p>\n VMVH1<\/strong><\/p>\n This is an absolute unit of a nodal cabinet (virtual hub). The large chassis is generally used as part of FTTP based deployments and you’ll normally see one for every 3,000 homes. Cabinets like this tend to be flanked by the smaller cabinet above, which is often acting as a power supply.<\/p>\n Virgin Media<\/a> EV Car Charging Cabinets<\/strong><\/p>\n In a few areas Virgin Media have deployed some specially modified cabinets that help to support a new system for charging electric cars (here<\/a>). We don’t know much about these but at present there are only a very few of them around.<\/p>\n Older Virgin Media \/ Telewest \/ NTL Cabinets<\/strong><\/p>\n Over the years we’ve seen Virgin Media use a variety of different cabinets and that’s particularly true from the old NTL and Telewest days (both were later merged into Virgin Media). You can see a small selection below but we know there are others, including some very sharp solid rectangular ones. Sadly finding good images of the older kit has proven to be rather difficult. The big green cabinets are often confused with Openreach’s similar PCP ones (see page 2).<\/p>\n Wall Mounted Distribution Boxes<\/strong><\/p>\n If you happen to live inside an apartment block (Multi-Dwelling Unit) then you might sometimes come across one of these. Virgin tends to use several from different companies like OpticReach and Hexatronic. Some of these are used for terminating drop cables in an MDU and others are used as a primary connection point for the entire building.<\/p>\n External Wall \/ Termination Boxes (Cable Wall Boxes)<\/strong><\/p>\n Not strictly street furniture but if you live in a house then you’ll probably find one of these boxes on the outside of it. The larger wall box on the right is used in their FTTP installs and often contains a Radio Frequency over Glass (RFoG) node like the Vector BOOSTRAL 611<\/a>, which converts the optical fibre signal into a coaxial DOCSIS<\/a> one for use inside your home (i.e. so they can use the same customer kit regardless of HFC or FTTP).<\/p>\n The smaller junction box on the left is often used for cable management and holding splitters in regular HFC deployments.<\/p>\n We do know of some other Virgin Media street furniture but have so far been unable to find any usable pictures.<\/p>\n Flick over the page to see Openreach’s street furniture.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n The national network operated by Openreach represents a complicated mix of many different technologies, although unlike Virgin Media nearly all of their street furniture is coloured green (often a darker green). The exception tends to be telegraph mounted FTTP equipment, which is often a generic black (the same for most operators).<\/p>\n We should point out that some of the cabinets below hark back to the pre-Openreach era when BT<\/a> was a single network and company, although much of that has long since been replaced. We will add new kit to this page once good pictures are available.<\/p>\n At present most of Openreach’s active street cabinets are either built by Huawei or ECI. As with Virgin, we don’t yet have pictures of their entire street infrastructure collection and have thus primarily focused upon the operator’s newer and more familiar kit.<\/p>\n Primary Cross-connection Point (PCP) Cabinet<\/strong><\/p>\n You’re probably most familiar with this cabinet as it’s the one that Openreach builds before they can add the newer DSLAMS for FTTC<\/a> and G.fast<\/a> broadband services. As per the name, it’s a primary distribution and aggregation point for their local network, although it use to only handle copper lines. Cabinets like this tend to manage 200-400 lines. Some also have smaller extension pods on the side (like the G.fast<\/a> pods below, but often without vents or fewer vents – can be sat on the right and \/ or left side).<\/p>\n Huawei DSLAM FTTC<\/a> 384HD or H288 Pictured is an upgraded version of their H200 series cabinet, which enables it to handle up to 384 ports for FTTC (VDSL2<\/a>) based superfast broadband connections. Openreach introduced these in 2016 and in 2019 it became possible to upgrade them to handle 512 ports (we don’t have any good pictures of the latter).<\/p>\n Huawei All In One (AIO)<\/strong><\/p>\n You’ll usually find these deployed in former Exchange Only Line (EOL) areas that have been upgraded via a complex network rearrangement. In short, AIO cabinets combine both the features of a PCP cabinet above with those of the usually smaller FTTC (VDSL2<\/a>) based DSLAM cabinets (i.e. phone and hybrid fibre broadband inside a single unit). Most can support 500 phone and 128 FTTC lines.<\/p>\n Huawei G.fast Extension Pod (Side of PCP Cabinet)<\/strong><\/p>\n At present Openreach’s G.fast based ultrafast hybrid fibre broadband technology is predominantly being deployed as a side pod, which is optionally stuck on to the side of their aforementioned PCP cabinets. This approach gives it a slightly different copper line distance (to the home) consideration than FTTC (VDSL2<\/a>) cabinets, which are usually built nearby.<\/p>\n Some older G.fast trials also built a small power pillar cabinet (NOT pictured) to support remote G.fast nodes on top of telegraph poles, which look very similar to this extension pod. The difference is that such power cabinets were independent, have a bold yellow warning of electric shock on the front and fewer vents.<\/p>\n Take note that you may see pods like this on other PCP cabinets, albeit without the vents. The lack of vents usually means it isn’t for G.fast and is more likely to just be extending the number of ports that the PCP cabinet can handle.<\/p>\n Huawei DSLAM FTTC Cabinet (128 Ports)<\/strong><\/p>\n A smaller cabinet for FTTC hybrid fibre broadband services, which can handle between 96 and up to 128 ports. Obviously you’re more likely to see these around smaller communities or areas of low demand.<\/p>\n ECI DSLAM FTTC Cabinet (256 Ports)<\/strong><\/p>\n Like the one above, this cabinet is another smaller one for FTTC hybrid fibre broadband services. The difference is that it uses hardware from ECI and can handle between 128 and up to 256 ports.<\/p>\n Wireless-to-the-Cabinet (WTTC) Pole \/ Mast<\/strong><\/p>\n A few remote rural parts of the UK were connected up via Openreach’s niche WTTC service, which is similar to their hybrid fibre FTTC (VDSL2) broadband network except that in this setup the DSLAM cabinet is fed by a Microwave (radio) wireless link instead of fibre optic cable.<\/p>\n Customer Splice Points (CSP) \/ External Termination Box (ETB) Generally this – also called a junction box – is the point where the copper or fibre optic cable comes up from the ground (assuming an underground duct deployment) and enters through the side of your property. The older boxy looking junction box is for copper lines.<\/p>\n Take note that there are usually no CSPs in brownfield FTTP architectures because the drop cables are indoor\/outdoor cables. Likewise you won’t have one of these on all houses and obviously those fed by an overhead (telegraph pole) cable don’t need one. In copper installs the internal Master Socket will usually be nearby to this.<\/p>\n Older PCP Cabinets<\/strong><\/p>\n BT<\/a> (pre-Openreach) also had a number of now significantly older looking street cabinets, although you’re unlikely to see too many of these around today as most of them have long since been replaced or re-shelled with one of the more modern units above. Sadly we don’t have any good royalty free pictures of the smaller single door cabinet on the right.<\/p>\n UPDATE 21st April 2020:<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n Thanks to one of our readers (Mark), we’ve been able to get a better picture of the GPO steel cabinet with its original door (shown in the lower res image above right). See the new picture immediately to the right of this text.<\/p>\n Fibre Nodes, Joints and Splitters (Underground or Pole Mounted)<\/strong><\/p>\n Openreach’s fibre optic based local access network tends to use a mix of aggregation nodes, joints and splitters in order to bring the service to your door. Some of these (e.g. agg nodes) mostly sit underground in their own chamber and so you won’t see them, but a lot of others are pole mounted.<\/p>\n Some of the most common examples of all these can be found pictured below and sadly there are too many different types for us to bother identifying each, although they’re all quite similar. The odd one out is that black rectangular box with cylindrical nodules on top, which is a Connectorised Block Terminal (CBT). We’ve included some pictures of these units both with and without their covers.<\/p>\n Granted at a certain age saying the word “manhole<\/em>” might well have resulted in furious giggles from across the room but we older folk know better (ehumm..) and in this case we’re talking about underground chambers, which usually house all sorts of networking wonders; as well as the occasional horror.<\/p>\n The big problem with these is that from the surface they all look pretty generic and that’s because they have to conform to certain standards. On top of that some networks have changed hands so many times over the years, or share their infrastructure, that identifying who manages what from the central label can easily turn into an exercise in frustration.<\/p>\n A typical underground chamber will usually have several markings, sometimes around the edges and usually in the centre. You’ll probably see a generic heart shaped symbol (British Standard) and various British \/ European standard codes like EN124 or B125 etc. None of these tell you much about what’s below, they just identify the standard of lid\/chamber and what kind of environment it’s intended for (road, pedestrian etc.).<\/p>\n However in the very centre there’s usually a network name and that can help you to identify who owns what. One of the most common examples is when you see a chamber lid with the CATV<\/strong> name in the middle, which usually reflects the existence of cable TV \/ broadband networks like Virgin Media or WightFibre<\/a> (or Telewest, NTL and Smallworld Media before them).<\/p>\n Chambers and manholes come in all sorts of different shapes and sizes. As such the easiest solution is for us to try and list some of the common markings and associate them to primary networks (we probably won’t get all of them due to the complex history of different networks and ownerships).<\/p>\n Chamber\/Lid Markings for Virgin Media<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n CATV (generic – can also be used by other cable TV \/ broadband operators) Chamber\/Lid Markings for Sky (Sky Broadband<\/a>)<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n FIBREWAY Chamber\/Lid Markings for Vodafone<\/a><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\nVirgin Media’s Street Furniture<\/strong><\/span><\/h3>\n
![\"virgin_media_vmdd3-hp3_to_vmdd1-hp1\"](\"https:\/\/www.ispreview.co.uk\/wp-content\/gallery\/2019-article-illustrations\/virgin_media_vmdd3-hp3_to_vmdd1-hp1.jpg\")
<\/p>\n![\"virgin_media_vmsd1\"](\"https:\/\/www.ispreview.co.uk\/wp-content\/gallery\/2019-article-illustrations\/virgin_media_vmsd1.jpg\")
<\/p>\n![\"virgin_media_vmvh1\"](\"https:\/\/www.ispreview.co.uk\/wp-content\/gallery\/2019-article-illustrations\/virgin_media_vmvh1.jpg\")
<\/p>\n![\"virgin](\"https:\/\/www.ispreview.co.uk\/wp-content\/gallery\/2019-article-illustrations\/virgin_media_ev_cabinets.jpg\")
<\/p>\n![\"virgin_media_old_cabinets\"](\"https:\/\/www.ispreview.co.uk\/wp-content\/gallery\/2019-article-illustrations\/virgin_media_old_cabinets.jpg\")
<\/p>\n![\"Virgin-Media-Old-Street-Cabinet-Green\"](\"https:\/\/www.ispreview.co.uk\/wp-content\/gallery\/uk-broadband-isp-hardware\/Virgin-Media-Old-Street-Cabinet-Green.jpg\")
<\/p>\n![\"virgin](\"https:\/\/www.ispreview.co.uk\/wp-content\/gallery\/2019-article-illustrations\/virgin_media_wall_boxes.jpg\")
<\/p>\n![\"virgin_media_external_wall_box\"](\"https:\/\/www.ispreview.co.uk\/wp-content\/gallery\/2019-article-illustrations\/virgin_media_external_wall_box.jpg\")
<\/p>\nOpenreach’s Street Furniture<\/strong><\/span><\/h3>\n
![\"openreach_pcp_cabinet\"](\"https:\/\/www.ispreview.co.uk\/wp-content\/gallery\/2019-article-illustrations\/openreach_pcp_cabinet.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
\n<\/strong><\/p>\n![\"openreach_384hd_upgrade_cabinet\"](\"https:\/\/www.ispreview.co.uk\/wp-content\/gallery\/2019-article-illustrations\/openreach_384hd_upgrade_cabinet.jpg\")
<\/p>\n![\"openreach_all_in_one_cabinet\"](\"https:\/\/www.ispreview.co.uk\/wp-content\/gallery\/2019-article-illustrations\/openreach_all_in_one_cabinet.jpg\")
<\/p>\n![\"openreach_gfast_extension_pod\"](\"https:\/\/www.ispreview.co.uk\/wp-content\/gallery\/2019-article-illustrations\/openreach_gfast_extension_pod.jpg\")
<\/p>\n![\"openreach_huawei-128-fttc-cabinet\"](\"https:\/\/www.ispreview.co.uk\/wp-content\/gallery\/2019-article-illustrations\/openreach_huawei-128-fttc-cabinet.jpg\")
<\/p>\n![\"openreach-eci-256-fttc-cabinet\"](\"https:\/\/www.ispreview.co.uk\/wp-content\/gallery\/2019-article-illustrations\/openreach-eci-256-fttc-cabinet.jpg\")
<\/p>\n![\"wireless](\"https:\/\/www.ispreview.co.uk\/wp-content\/gallery\/bt-openreach-uk-illustrations\/wireless_to_the_cabinet_fttc_deployment.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
\n<\/strong><\/p>\n![\"openreach_etb_csp_wall_box\"](\"https:\/\/www.ispreview.co.uk\/wp-content\/gallery\/2019-article-illustrations\/openreach_etb_csp_wall_box.jpg\")
<\/p>\n![\"bt_old_street_cabinets\"](\"https:\/\/www.ispreview.co.uk\/wp-content\/gallery\/2019-article-illustrations\/bt_old_street_cabinets.jpg\")
<\/p>\n![\"gpo_single_door_steel_cabinet\"](\"https:\/\/www.ispreview.co.uk\/wp-content\/gallery\/bt-openreach-uk-illustrations\/gpo_single_door_steel_cabinet.jpg\")
<\/p>\n![\"openreach_fibre_splitters_nodes_joints_cbts\"](\"https:\/\/www.ispreview.co.uk\/wp-content\/gallery\/2019-article-illustrations\/openreach_fibre_splitters_nodes_joints_cbts.jpg\")
<\/p>\nA Word About Manholes and Chambers
\n<\/strong><\/span><\/h3>\n![\"virgin_media_chamber_build_new_homes_guide\"](\"https:\/\/www.ispreview.co.uk\/wp-content\/gallery\/2019-article-illustrations\/virgin_media_chamber_build_new_homes_guide.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
\nCableTel
\nNTL
\nCroydon Cable
\nUnited Cable
\nUnited Artists
\nBirmingham Cable
\nCABLE LONDON
\nEUROBELL
\nTELEWEST
\nSMALLWORLD
\nVIRGIN MEDIA<\/p>\n
\nIPSARIS
\nEASYNET
\nSKY<\/p>\n