50M : Is this a typical cabinet?

[New to cable]

Just had an outage and took stroll over to the local cabinet and the door was open revealing this. Sorry for crap quality but every single "tap" I believe they're called is connected to a 3 way splitter. Then the cables off the splitter each had a different address tag. So I assume this cabinet has more customers than originally intended?

[Nedkelly]

In some areas yes there is a program in which these cabs are getting a make over .There will be a lot of dead cables in there ie the customers are no longer with us and should come off the tap .That cab is a bad one

[thenry]

Thats a disgrace. VM upgrades will soon sort that out as mentioned by Ned

[REM]

That looks messy.

I was bored to took the liberty of "improving" the photo a little

[Tim Deegan]

I don't envy the poor engineers who have to sort through that spaggetti

[Sephiroth]

The 3 way splitter population is worrying. If this is done all over the area then the optical node will be well oversubscribed. Not only that the homes furthest from the cabinet are likely to have low downstream and high upstream power, affecting the number of devices they can have at home.

It's a shocking practice IMO.

[Stephen]

Originally Posted by Sephiroth

The 3 way splitter population is worrying. If this is done all over the area then the optical node will be well oversubscribed. Not only that the homes furthest from the cabinet are likely to have low downstream and high upstream power, affecting the number of devices they can have at home.

It's a shocking practice IMO.

As mentioned their is a project running just now to clean up all the cabs and a lot of those connections in the cab may not actually be live anymore, so after clean up that cab will more than likely look alot better and not have as many splitters.

[New to cable]

Originally Posted by Stephen

As mentioned their is a project running just now to clean up all the cabs and a lot of those connections in the cab may not actually be live anymore, so after clean up that cab will more than likely look alot better and not have as many splitters.

Well recently 2 Virginmedia guys spent a whole day messing about in that cabinet then a day or 2 later it was repainted. I got awful feeling that the "Clean up" team have already visited that cabinet.

Unless you can confirm they have/have not reached Telford yet?

[Sephiroth]

Originally Posted by Stephen

As mentioned their is a project running just now to clean up all the cabs and a lot of those connections in the cab may not actually be live anymore, so after clean up that cab will more than likely look alot better and not have as many splitters.

Sure. But you know the HFC standard - the infrastructure should be such as to support between 500 and 2000 homes passed per optical node.

I do trust VM to at least intend doing the necessaries, particularly by pulling more fibre to the optical nodes in high population areas so as to regulate the demand on the provided DS/UP channels.

I suppose you could argue that the small cabinet in the picture, if replaced by a large cabinet, wouldn't need the splitters. So if this small cabinet is an exception rather than area practice, I could sort of back off save that it should be a larger cabinet. The practice of putting splitters at the tap point is poor and makes it more noise prone if un-used ends are not terminated.

[New to cable]

Originally Posted by Sephiroth

Sure. But you know the HFC standard - the infrastructure should be such as to support between 500 and 2000 homes passed per optical node.

I do trust VM to at least intend doing the necessaries, particularly by pulling more fibre to the optical nodes in high population areas so as to regulate the demand on the provided DS/UP channels.

I suppose you could argue that the small cabinet in the picture, if replaced by a large cabinet, wouldn't need the splitters. So if this small cabinet is an exception rather than area practice, I could sort of back off save that it should be a larger cabinet. The practice of putting splitters at the tap point is poor and makes it more noise prone if un-used ends are not terminated.

Are you sure thats a small cabinet? Its atleast 3foot high and 4 foot in length maybe 1 foot in width. I have never seen and bigger ones round here.

[kwikbreaks]

Originally Posted by Sephiroth

The practice of putting splitters at the tap point is poor and makes it more noise prone if un-used ends are not terminated.

Originally Posted by Nedkelly

There will be a lot of dead cables in there ie the customers are no longer with us and should come off the tap .

Sounds like unterminated lengths of possibly damaged coax hanging off the splitters is pretty much a certainty.

I guess given the options available - refusing to take a new customer or installing another cab fitting a splitter seemed a good option the first time the cab got full. Carrying that decision forward until every tap point had one shows just how slipshod things can become. Who would be to blame - local network management or higher up the food chain?

[Sephiroth]

No I'm not sure due to picture definition. But from the one's like that I've seen in my area, all the tap points are 15 dB and there is a single door.

I haven't seen the directional coupler in the picture and therefore wonder whether or not this cabinet is the last in the daisy chain onto the optical node.

[kwikbreaks]

Could it be a two door cab with just the RH door open? It looks very narrow in relation to the height to the typical cab in my area (all two door ones).

[New to cable]

I will pop over get a better picture now its daytime,

[kwikbreaks]

Hold your nose - chances are every dog in the street will have cocked its leg over those cables.