Apiary with 240v overhead power line

[Erichalfbee]

"but not the awkward last 5%".

That’s likely me.
Not that I watch much tele but if I want to steam a film, or even post in here I have to tether my phone

 

[JamezF]

I hadn't realised you were the steamy film type

At least you can use your phone though. Here the only way we get mobile connectivity is to use "wifi calling" via our (very slow) ADSL line. Hopefully at least the latter will improve a bit once they finally get the fibre stuff commissioned.

James

 

[roche]

Openreach are supposed to convert the entire network to digital by 2025. Of course they (or BT) have in the past decided that "entire" actually means "but not the awkward last 5%".

James

One of the worst decisions ever made...The plain old telephone system works. Everywhere. You don't need power at the location, just a phone line. The quality is better than any mobile. I will hold onto my analog line as long as I can. Hopefully long enough for the sheer stupidity to be realised and the decision reversed.

 

[Erichalfbee]

At least you can use your phone though.

We have a 4G mast across the valley. Near enough to make the bees’ hair stand on end.

 

[Erichalfbee]

I hadn't realised you were the steamy film type

Oops

 

[JamezF]

One of the worst decisions ever made...The plain old telephone system works. Everywhere. You don't need power at the location, just a phone line. The quality is better than any mobile. I will hold onto my analog line as long as I can. Hopefully long enough for the sheer stupidity to be realised and the decision reversed.

Sadly ours often isn't better quality than a mobile (where one works) because the lines have been hit by lightning or hedging flails or whatever so many times. Almost every set of poles between us and the exchange has it's own section of cable that has been patched in to repair a fault Every time they actually have to replace several short sections with a longer run we get a slightly faster ADSL connection speed. I'm wondering if we'll make it to 5Mb/s before everything goes digital. I do take your point though. I'm not aware of what the plan is in terms of providing sufficient power for an emergency services telephone call in the event of a power cut for example. Hopefully there is one. Or what happens if the current phone line enters the house nowhere convenient for a power socket, come to think of it.

I can't see minds being changed however. As far as the suppliers are concerned it seems their view is "more bandwidth = more income", and the couch potatoes are ever more desperate for greater definition for their vacuous televisual brain rotting. Come to think of it, once everyone has enough bandwidth to stream sufficient television programmes to cause their entire central nervous system to regress to that of an earthworm, I'd not be surprised if broadcast terrestrial television is discontinued in favour of using the bandwidth for more wireless services.

Nor do I think you'll get (much of) a choice about "hanging on" to your POTS line. I'd guess at some point we'll all get a letter along the lines of "On <today+six months> we'll be turning off your analogue phone service. You have to make an appointment to be switched over to the shiny new digital system by that time or your phone line will cease working". Not sure quite how that fits with the USO, but perhaps if you're failing to take an action that is required to connect to a service that is available, it'll probably be viewed as your problem.

James

 

[roche]

Sadly ours often isn't better quality than a mobile (where one works) because the lines have been hit by lightning or hedging flails or whatever so many times. Almost every set of poles between us and the exchange has it's own section of cable that has been patched in to repair a fault Every time they actually have to replace several short sections with a longer run we get a slightly faster ADSL connection speed. I'm wondering if we'll make it to 5Mb/s before everything goes digital. I do take your point though. I'm not aware of what the plan is in terms of providing sufficient power for an emergency services telephone call in the event of a power cut for example. Hopefully there is one. Or what happens if the current phone line enters the house nowhere convenient for a power socket, come to think of it.

I can't see minds being changed however. As far as the suppliers are concerned it seems their view is "more bandwidth = more income", and the couch potatoes are ever more desperate for greater definition for their vacuous televisual brain rotting. Come to think of it, once everyone has enough bandwidth to stream sufficient television programmes to cause their entire central nervous system to regress to that of an earthworm, I'd not be surprised if broadcast terrestrial television is discontinued in favour of using the bandwidth for more wireless services.

Nor do I think you'll get (much of) a choice about "hanging on" to your POTS line. I'd guess at some point we'll all get a letter along the lines of "On <today+six months> we'll be turning off your analogue phone service. You have to make an appointment to be switched over to the shiny new digital system by that time or your phone line will cease working". Not sure quite how that fits with the USO, but perhaps if you're failing to take an action that is required to connect to a service that is available, it'll probably be viewed as your problem.

James

Sure, the last bit of analog can be tricky (but it can be repaired with a bit of wire...), but once the signal is sitting on an E1 the quality is superb. But as IP is considered as a solution to everything, even when it is an Inappropriate Protocol there is not much hope. I am just stunned that OFCOM is so dense as to let it happen. There are instances where POTS have had to be continued due to mobile network unavailability but they are rare - sheeple just let it happen. And as for the sheer waste: millions of perfectly serviceable phones going in the bin... As for streaming services, they are so energy inefficient compared to broadcast that they should not be permitted. But people are told they want it, so it must be so...
And on the note of energy efficiency, the IP telephony services will add a significant amount of power usage - POTS is pretty frugal.

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

But when you go out into deepest Africa, the mobile signal is superb in most places - internet is available in the middle of nowhere, there's not many places you cannot video call using whatsapp or similar.
With barely a strand of copper

 

[roche]

But when you go out into deepest Africa, the mobile signal is superb in most places - internet is available in the middle of nowhere, there's not many places you cannot video call using whatsapp or similar.
With barely a strand of copper

Yep - totally leapfrogged the wired telephony stage of evolution. There are places where it can make sense - where the infrastructure does not exist, or the terrain or other environmental factors preclude using wires.

 

[JamezF]

it can be repaired with a bit of wire

That's another question that had occurred to me: when the (digital) line breaks, how will it be repaired? It appears that on our lines at least there are lengths of fibre plugged together. I'm guessing that they find the failed length and just replace the entire thing which seems somewhat wasteful.

James

 

[Garry R]

I have a telegraph pole outside the house with a total of 17 wires to and from it. It takes the electricity supply and then the distribution of it to a fair number of houses. Then there are all the telephone lines, a supply and the distribution of those, a number of which will now be redundant as people switch to mobile phones away from landlines. Then we have Truespeed fibre for the broadband to a number of houses which I must say works really well compared with 1.6mbytes on the BT line in the past. However the bees don't seem to be affected at all by this bombardment of electricity etc and actually they tell me about all the YouTube videos etc they are accessing on the internet. They particularly enjoy the Beekeeping and Apiculture Forum but they have a common complaint about beekeepers not being able to make solid decisions about their beekeeping techniques when the bees themselves find it all so easy!!!

 

[roche]

That's another question that had occurred to me: when the (digital) line breaks, how will it be repaired? It appears that on our lines at least there are lengths of fibre plugged together. I'm guessing that they find the failed length and just replace the entire thing which seems somewhat wasteful.

James

They can be spliced in the field, but there is some optical loss.

 

[Swarm]

How do you think they go into the ground? One length? Fibre is blown down fibre tubing and spliced/jointed at designated locations.
Damage requires a length to be renewed from point to point as fibre joints are large and can be very large and impractical/impossible to incorporate more into the infrastructure.
Copper lengths also used to be renewed in this way, from existing joint to next existing joint, as introducing more creates line loss.

 

[Gilberdyke John]

Yep - totally leapfrogged the wired telephony stage of evolution. There are places where it can make sense - where the infrastructure does not exist, or the terrain or other environmental factors preclude using wires.

Ironic that the Copper belt runs through Africa.

 

[Gilberdyke John]

That's another question that had occurred to me: when the (digital) line breaks, how will it be repaired? It appears that on our lines at least there are lengths of fibre plugged together. I'm guessing that they find the failed length and just replace the entire thing which seems somewhat wasteful.

James

In practice jointing fibre optic strands is straightforward. Losses are inevitably introduced but use of repeater amplifiers at suitable intervals can ensure continuity of service. I watched a technician connect a modern petrol pump control/signal link between pump and kiosk console. The job involved making a clean cut across the fibre and plugging the end into a sleeve which held the cut end in straight on contact with a similar fibre in the pump head

 

[JamezF]

Copper lengths also used to be renewed in this way, from existing joint to next existing joint, as introducing more creates line loss.

Exactly why our ADSL connection speed has improved as short runs with multiple repairs have been replaced by longer unbroken runs, I believe.

Other than running (quite) a few hundred metres of cat5e around my house I've not really been involved with the "pointy end" of networks for almost twenty-five years so I imagine the processes have changed somewhat, particularly where management of fibre is concerned. I assume that every fibre junction, original or repair, or in fact where runs to individual properties are taken off, involves a repeater and that the installed "cable" must therefore carry power from the exchange or terminating cabinet as well as signal. Or is that not necessary these days? My brain objects to the idea of carrying sufficient current at low voltage to manage that over, well, say several miles (our phone line is about three and a quarter miles, as measured by the Openreach engineer's kit, direct between us and the exchange), because of the power losses.

James

 

[Gilberdyke John]

Exactly why our ADSL connection speed has improved as short runs with multiple repairs have been replaced by longer unbroken runs, I believe.

Other than running (quite) a few hundred metres of cat5e around my house I've not really been involved with the "pointy end" of networks for almost twenty-five years so I imagine the processes have changed somewhat, particularly where management of fibre is concerned. I assume that every fibre junction, original or repair, or in fact where runs to individual properties are taken off, involves a repeater and that the installed "cable" must therefore carry power from the exchange or terminating cabinet as well as signal. Or is that not necessary these days? My brain objects to the idea of carrying sufficient current at low voltage to manage that over, well, say several miles (our phone line is about three and a quarter miles, as measured by the Openreach engineer's kit, direct between us and the exchange), because of the power losses.

James

I wonder if ATKINSONS TELEPHONY has been replaced by a new reference "bible" with modern transmission rates in mind?

 

[Swarm]

Exactly why our ADSL connection speed has improved as short runs with multiple repairs have been replaced by longer unbroken runs, I believe.

No that won't be the case.

Other than running (quite) a few hundred metres of cat5e around my house I've not really been involved with the "pointy end" of networks for almost twenty-five years so I imagine the processes have changed somewhat, particularly where management of fibre is concerned. I assume that every fibre junction, original or repair, or in fact where runs to individual properties are taken off, involves a repeater and that the installed "cable" must therefore carry power from the exchange or terminating cabinet as well as signal. Or is that not necessary these days? My brain objects to the idea of carrying sufficient current at low voltage to manage that over, well, say several miles (our phone line is about three and a quarter miles, as measured by the Openreach engineer's kit, direct between us and the exchange), because of the power losses.

James

Fibre doesn't carry power. Fibre to the cabinet involves a power supply as from that point the service is via copper cable.
What would affect your connection speed is how close the fibre cabinet is to your property and the quality of the conductor, Basically just Ohms Law.

 

[JamezF]

Fibre doesn't carry power. Fibre to the cabinet involves a power supply as from that point the service is via copper cable.
What would affect your connection speed is how close the fibre cabinet is to your property and the quality of the conductor, Basically just Ohms Law.

We don't have "a cabinet" at all. Our POTS line, like everyone else's out this way, runs all the way back to the exchange.

Once the digital system is up and running, if they're delivering IP to the house (which is what I've always understood to be the case) and they're doing so over copper then presumably they need power somewhere on the pole to do it. And around here there won't generally be anywhere to get it from. So how will it be done?

Granted they could install cabinets, run power to them and run copper to houses from the cabinet, but there's no sign of that happening and in most cases there's not actually anywhere convenient to install a cabinet here. Almost none where there's also a usable power source. I'd guess that the preference would be to keep the copper runs short too because of the weight of the cabling, but again that wouldn't be practical around here because whilst there are a couple of clusters of up to half a dozen houses, in the main they're a fair distance apart.

I feel like I must be missing something vital about how it's going to work. I believe the road into Wiveliscombe is closed for a few days from today whilst Circet do some installation work for Openreach. Perhaps I should wander down and ask the engineers

James

 

[Gilberdyke John]

We don't have "a cabinet" at all. Our POTS line, like everyone else's out this way, runs all the way back to the exchange.

Once the digital system is up and running, if they're delivering IP to the house (which is what I've always understood to be the case) and they're doing so over copper then presumably they need power somewhere on the pole to do it. And around here there won't generally be anywhere to get it from. So how will it be done?

Granted they could install cabinets, run power to them and run copper to houses from the cabinet, but there's no sign of that happening and in most cases there's not actually anywhere convenient to install a cabinet here. Almost none where there's also a usable power source. I'd guess that the preference would be to keep the copper runs short too because of the weight of the cabling, but again that wouldn't be practical around here because whilst there are a couple of clusters of up to half a dozen houses, in the main they're a fair distance apart.

I feel like I must be missing something vital about how it's going to work. I believe the road into Wiveliscombe is closed for a few days from today whilst Circet do some installation work for Openreach. Perhaps I should wander down and ask the engineers

James

You'll probably get a straightforward answer rather than the marketing department party line The bloke on the ground with working knowledge.
Somewhat on the same theme, in the 1960s GEC Telecommunications ran an investigation in Coventry Telephone Works efficiency and practices. It turned out that the work for next week depended greatly on what parts the fork truck driver delivered to the shop floor.