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Anyone Know What This is?

Hello,

My local BT street cabinet was the first to be upgraded in my area when BT rolled out FTTC.

Recently the cabinet has had a new extension pod added to the right-hand side as shown in the link below.

Is this a G.Fast pod or just a capacity extension?

A BT engineer I saw working at the cabinet said it was for the G.Fast rollout but since it does not appear to have the air vents in the front of it like those you can find in pictures on the internet I am not convinced he was right.

I am also not convinced it is merely a capacity extension pod, as no new homes have been built in the area for years.

Anyone know for sure?

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v60/mpearson1968/20180324_123253.jpg
 
This is getting very confusing...lol

Found this statement in another post:

'G.fast will be installed on pods that sit on the side of your local PCP street cabinet, which is not the same cabinet / DSLAM as used for FTTC (VDSL2).'

But then I found this statement:

'BT's plans only seem to involve adding a G.Fast "pod" to existing VDSL cabinets.'

Very confusing :confused:
 
G.fast was my assumption as well, from what l know and have heard about it, its essentially a technology that offers speeds much faster than FTTC (Fibre To The Cabinet) it basically uses the same copper wiring to deliver better speeds over short distances on fibre enabled cabinets.

however there maybe something lm missing, so please someone with more of an idea than myself correct me if lm wrong lol.
 
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G.fast isn't that good I am a 5 min walk from my cabinet yet my predicted speeds were slower than FTTC. So unless you live a few doors from cabinet forget it.
 
So far as I'm aware, G.fast pods always have air vents, although that could of course change with future kit. Crucially the G.fast pods are only installed on the side of existing PCP street cabinets, which are separate from the FTTC / DSLAM cabinets that many areas will have seen crop up over the past few years.

It might help to know exactly which street and postcode this particular cabinet sits on, but it could be either a FTTC or PCP extension (perhaps the former). The cabinet has been re-shelled so it's a little more difficult to be sure which of those two it is since cabinet designs do change over the years.
 
It’s a DSLAM extension to add more tie pairs to then PCP. Nothing to do with G.Fast.


Hello,

My local BT street cabinet was the first to be upgraded in my area when BT rolled out FTTC.

Recently the cabinet has had a new extension pod added to the right-hand side as shown in the link below.

Is this a G.Fast pod or just a capacity extension?

A BT engineer I saw working at the cabinet said it was for the G.Fast rollout but since it does not appear to have the air vents in the front of it like those you can find in pictures on the internet I am not convinced he was right.

I am also not convinced it is merely a capacity extension pod, as no new homes have been built in the area for years.

Anyone know for sure?

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v60/mpearson1968/20180324_123253.jpg
 
You sure you are on G Fast? I didn't think ISP Aquiss were offering Gfast yet.

Looks like good FTTC speed to me. G Fast should provide a minimum of 100 and if you that close it should be much higher. Either that or its your VDSL modem, what did they give you?.
 
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You sure you are on G Fast? I didn't think ISP Aquiss were offering Gfast yet.

Looks like good FTTC speed to me. G Fast should provide a minimum of 100 and if you that close it should be much higher. Either that or its your VDSL modem, what did they give you?.

No I am going off what my predicted speeds were from cabinet image added I did a check on my neighbours and some further away had faster predicted speeds. The speeds varied randomly by 100Mbps up or down. After my complaint they removed the G.fast from registering speeds on my cabinet. My neighbour the last on our cabinet was showing as available and 100Mbps she is like me 5 mins max walk from cabinet. Three doors from cabinet was showing 70Mbps less than the fourth door. I show as amber as I am not a BT retail customer those who showed as available after talking to them were BT retail customers. All more or less said they wasn't going to bother with the extra speed.
 
Last edited:
I would be suspicious of how these estimated values are being determined. Also the walking distance from the cabinet will not necessarily represent the path of the cables. I live on a small development (23 years) and instead of going to the first cabinet we are connected to the next for capacity reasons at the time which means we will never get decent Broadband speeds. If you are getting good FTTC speeds then you should get good Gfast unless you have very bad crosstalk near your house. BT Ultrafast (Gfast) will come with a 100 guarantee so they will not be selling it if the speeds cannot be comfortably achieved. Other ISPs are likely to follow this principle too. What will be key is a decent modem. Openreach have been using different models as a comparison. BT will be launching their new Ultrafast Smart Hub more widely soon and then other ISPs will follow with their branded choice.

Broadband speed is dependant on distance from the exchange (ADSL) and the cabinet (FTTC) along with the quality of the copper pairs in each cable and the wire connections. Many technologies have been used over the years so it can be very variable even in the same street. If the ISP is using Openreach then there is no difference to the line pair to your house. What matters is the ISP connectivity to the parts of the Internet that you wish particularly to access hence why we get such contradictory views of ISPs.
 
I would be suspicious of how these estimated values are being determined. Also the walking distance from the cabinet will not necessarily represent the path of the cables. I live on a small development (23 years) and instead of going to the first cabinet we are connected to the next for capacity reasons at the time which means we will never get decent Broadband speeds. If you are getting good FTTC speeds then you should get good Gfast unless you have very bad crosstalk near your house. BT Ultrafast (Gfast) will come with a 100 guarantee so they will not be selling it if the speeds cannot be comfortably achieved. Other ISPs are likely to follow this principle too. What will be key is a decent modem. Openreach have been using different models as a comparison. BT will be launching their new Ultrafast Smart Hub more widely soon and then other ISPs will follow with their branded choice.

The walk to the cabinet is exactly the lay of the cables I live on same street as the cainet the cables go up the pole crosses the road two posts down my drop lead. The number of posts including the one at the cabinet 3 that is also because first two are almost opposite one another to take cable across road. My next door neighbour is the last person on our cabinet on this road the ones after her come from cabinet on other side of the street.

Broadband speed is dependant on distance from the exchange (ADSL) and the cabinet (FTTC) along with the quality of the copper pairs in each cable and the wire connections. Many technologies have been used over the years so it can be very variable even in the same street. If the ISP is using Openreach then there is no difference to the line pair to your house. What matters is the ISP connectivity to the parts of the Internet that you wish particularly to access hence why we get such contradictory views of ISPs.

To be fair my ADSL2+ never did reach the expected speeds but then the Nte5 was BT's responsibility and would do nothing now they moved it to ours I can. The cables from cabinet was changed about 20 years ago my drop lead on the house has never been changed I have lived her over 30 years so copper is old.
 
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