Home News Forum Articles
  Welcome back Join CF
You are here You are here: Home | Forum | New homepage

You are currently viewing our boards as a guest which gives you limited access to view most of the discussions, articles and other free features. By joining our Virgin Media community you will have full access to all discussions, be able to view and post threads, communicate privately with other members (PM), respond to polls, upload your own images/photos, and access many other special features. Registration is fast, simple and absolutely free so please join our community today.


Welcome to Cable Forum
Go Back   Cable Forum > Virgin Media Services > Virgin Media Internet Service

Virgin Media laying fibre in established VM areas?
Reply
 
Thread Tools
Old 26-05-2017, 23:34   #1
roughbeast
cf.mega poster
 
roughbeast's Avatar
 
Join Date: Jul 2008
Location: Coventry
Services: Vodafone/City Fibre Gigafast 900
Posts: 1,781
roughbeast has reached the bronze age
roughbeast has reached the bronze ageroughbeast has reached the bronze ageroughbeast has reached the bronze ageroughbeast has reached the bronze ageroughbeast has reached the bronze ageroughbeast has reached the bronze ageroughbeast has reached the bronze ageroughbeast has reached the bronze ageroughbeast has reached the bronze ageroughbeast has reached the bronze ageroughbeast has reached the bronze age
Virgin Media laying fibre in established VM areas?

Today whilst delivering political leaflets in South Coventry I noticed two locations in which Virgin were laying new optic fibre along two well-established streets. I asked the contractors if they were laying coax or fibre. "Fibre", they said. The fibre is being laid in shallow pavement trenches with access hatches shared between two houses looking a little different than those currently employed for coax on the old NTL network.
.

Is this typical where VM decide to lay cable for existing streets as part of a network extension? I am assuming that each house with the new fibre will be offered fibre to the premises.
__________________
Join Date: Jul 2008
Location: Coventry
Services: FACTCO/CityFibre 1GB FTTP; Asus GT-AX11000 +3 iMesh nodes; Humax 2Tb TV boxes x2; Synology DS920+ used as Plex server
roughbeast is online now   Reply With Quote
Advertisement
Old 26-05-2017, 23:49   #2
MUD_Wizard
Inactive
 
Join Date: May 2013
Posts: 382
MUD_Wizard is a splendid one to beholdMUD_Wizard is a splendid one to beholdMUD_Wizard is a splendid one to beholdMUD_Wizard is a splendid one to beholdMUD_Wizard is a splendid one to beholdMUD_Wizard is a splendid one to beholdMUD_Wizard is a splendid one to beholdMUD_Wizard is a splendid one to beholdMUD_Wizard is a splendid one to behold
Re: Virhin Media laying fibre in established VM areas?

Quote:
Originally Posted by roughbeast View Post
Today whilst delivering political leaflets in South Coventry I noticed two locations in which Virgin were laying new optic fibre along two well-established streets. I asked the contractors if they were laying coax or fibre. "Fibre", they said. The fibre is being laid in shallow pavement trenches with access hatches shared between two houses looking a little different than those currently employed for coax on the old NTL network.
.

Is this typical where VM decide to lay cable for existing streets as part of a network extension? I am assuming that each house with the new fibre will be offered fibre to the premises.
Narrow trenching is typical for a percentage of the Project Lightning builds:
http://www.ispreview.co.uk/index.php...broadband.html

It's still RFoG Docsis over fibre, so don't get too excited. Terminated into coax at each end. Still sharing the same channels as always. Nothing like GEA FTTP.

Last edited by MUD_Wizard; 26-05-2017 at 23:53.
MUD_Wizard is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 27-05-2017, 00:41   #3
roughbeast
cf.mega poster
 
roughbeast's Avatar
 
Join Date: Jul 2008
Location: Coventry
Services: Vodafone/City Fibre Gigafast 900
Posts: 1,781
roughbeast has reached the bronze age
roughbeast has reached the bronze ageroughbeast has reached the bronze ageroughbeast has reached the bronze ageroughbeast has reached the bronze ageroughbeast has reached the bronze ageroughbeast has reached the bronze ageroughbeast has reached the bronze ageroughbeast has reached the bronze ageroughbeast has reached the bronze ageroughbeast has reached the bronze ageroughbeast has reached the bronze age
Re: Virhin Media laying fibre in established VM areas?

Quote:
Originally Posted by MUD_Wizard View Post
Narrow trenching is typical for a percentage of the Project Lightning builds:
http://www.ispreview.co.uk/index.php...broadband.html

It's still RFoG Docsis over fibre, so don't get too excited. Terminated into coax at each end. Still sharing the same channels as always. Nothing like GEA FTTP.
So, why are they bothering? They can achieve 300Mb with fibre to the node and coax to the premises. Why bother with fibre along the street unless they are expecting something different going forward.
__________________
Join Date: Jul 2008
Location: Coventry
Services: FACTCO/CityFibre 1GB FTTP; Asus GT-AX11000 +3 iMesh nodes; Humax 2Tb TV boxes x2; Synology DS920+ used as Plex server
roughbeast is online now   Reply With Quote
Old 27-05-2017, 03:00   #4
Onramp
Inactive
 
Join Date: Sep 2016
Posts: 210
Onramp will become famous soon enoughOnramp will become famous soon enoughOnramp will become famous soon enough
Re: Virhin Media laying fibre in established VM areas?

Quote:
Originally Posted by roughbeast View Post
So, why are they bothering? They can achieve 300Mb with fibre to the node and coax to the premises. Why bother with fibre along the street unless they are expecting something different going forward.
It's a better investment for areas that are large-ish and not previously cabled, or due to be upgraded because of poor bandwidth / node usage.

It's not much more expensive than coaxial and may even be cheaper.

- No powered line amplifiers requiring an electrical connection, just optical splitters.

- You can run the whole existing cable network as a service over the fibre while simultaneously providing GPON, EPON or XG-PON (10Gbit up and down) over the same fibre.

So, it's ready for the future when there is more data usage, fewer live TV channels, almost everything "video" is streamed and what is today a cable box, in the future runs off an ethernet connection to your fibre termination point and your TV channels are replaced with sections of branded streaming and live content portals in the EPG.
Onramp is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 27-05-2017, 06:36   #5
MUD_Wizard
Inactive
 
Join Date: May 2013
Posts: 382
MUD_Wizard is a splendid one to beholdMUD_Wizard is a splendid one to beholdMUD_Wizard is a splendid one to beholdMUD_Wizard is a splendid one to beholdMUD_Wizard is a splendid one to beholdMUD_Wizard is a splendid one to beholdMUD_Wizard is a splendid one to beholdMUD_Wizard is a splendid one to beholdMUD_Wizard is a splendid one to behold
Re: Virhin Media laying fibre in established VM areas?

Quote:
Originally Posted by roughbeast View Post
So, why are they bothering? They can achieve 300Mb with fibre to the node and coax to the premises. Why bother with fibre along the street unless they are expecting something different going forward.
This is known as Fibre Deep Node+0. Node plus zero additional amplifiers, leaving only those in the node.

Which means:
- Reduced power requirements and savings.
- Eliminates the cost of periodically replacing the amps.
- Cuts the expense of maintaining the amps.
- Reduces network failures due to amps.
- Enables extended spectrum and Full-Duplex.
- Everything moving forward requires only changes at the node and headend now, making remote PHY in the future much easier. Each new node may become its own Service Group in the end.

The bonus is that 50% of the new nodes for 4 million homes being FTTP means a hell of a saving on power bills.

Last edited by MUD_Wizard; 27-05-2017 at 06:50.
MUD_Wizard is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 27-05-2017, 10:07   #6
roughbeast
cf.mega poster
 
roughbeast's Avatar
 
Join Date: Jul 2008
Location: Coventry
Services: Vodafone/City Fibre Gigafast 900
Posts: 1,781
roughbeast has reached the bronze age
roughbeast has reached the bronze ageroughbeast has reached the bronze ageroughbeast has reached the bronze ageroughbeast has reached the bronze ageroughbeast has reached the bronze ageroughbeast has reached the bronze ageroughbeast has reached the bronze ageroughbeast has reached the bronze ageroughbeast has reached the bronze ageroughbeast has reached the bronze ageroughbeast has reached the bronze age
Re: Virgin Media laying fibre in established VM areas?

Thanks for the explanation. So, it's future proofing, reduction in costs, but no particular improvement in service, contention-wise, that wouldn't have been achieved by a cisco card upgrade and re-segmenting.

From what you imply about an future symmetrical 1Gb service, can I assume that fibre will be put in through all sections of the local network where it isn't already, i.e. head end > node > street box ?
__________________
Join Date: Jul 2008
Location: Coventry
Services: FACTCO/CityFibre 1GB FTTP; Asus GT-AX11000 +3 iMesh nodes; Humax 2Tb TV boxes x2; Synology DS920+ used as Plex server
roughbeast is online now   Reply With Quote
Old 27-05-2017, 12:39   #7
weesteev
Cable Guru
 
weesteev's Avatar
 
Join Date: Jun 2004
Location: Scotland
Age: 41
Services: Virgin Media Gig1 RFOG, TV360, Stream, GoFibre 1Gb
Posts: 1,049
weesteev has reached the bronze age
weesteev has reached the bronze ageweesteev has reached the bronze ageweesteev has reached the bronze ageweesteev has reached the bronze ageweesteev has reached the bronze ageweesteev has reached the bronze ageweesteev has reached the bronze ageweesteev has reached the bronze ageweesteev has reached the bronze age
Re: Virgin Media laying fibre in established VM areas?

Narrow trenching and FTTP blown fibre is cheaper to deploy than traditional dig both in the access and transit networks. Thats why the majority of build going forward will be FTTP. There will be no product difference between HFC and FTTP areas however, RFoG allows VM to leverage the current broadcast TV and broadband network that it currently uses without starting again with a full PON based architecture.

Long term strategy will have to be FTTLN to delivery Symmetrical Docsis 3.1.

HTH
__________________


Access Network Innovation @ Liberty Global/Virgin Media

All comments are my own opinion and not a direct expression of LG/VM.
weesteev is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 28-05-2017, 01:17   #8
Onramp
Inactive
 
Join Date: Sep 2016
Posts: 210
Onramp will become famous soon enoughOnramp will become famous soon enoughOnramp will become famous soon enough
Re: Virgin Media laying fibre in established VM areas?

Does the VM VHUB1 act as a whole hubsite in a box?

I mean - is content archived there by the roadside and played out across the group of nodes it powers, or are hub sites still in (what used to be) the regional headends?

I found it interesting that there were multiple ways of configuring the FTTP network in terms of which street enclosures are used and whether it is a 3 or a 4-level layout.

Back when I used to know how it all worked, I remember it being a simple star topology with each node having a corresponding laser in the hubsite (which used to be the headend).
Onramp is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 28-05-2017, 09:51   #9
weesteev
Cable Guru
 
weesteev's Avatar
 
Join Date: Jun 2004
Location: Scotland
Age: 41
Services: Virgin Media Gig1 RFOG, TV360, Stream, GoFibre 1Gb
Posts: 1,049
weesteev has reached the bronze age
weesteev has reached the bronze ageweesteev has reached the bronze ageweesteev has reached the bronze ageweesteev has reached the bronze ageweesteev has reached the bronze ageweesteev has reached the bronze ageweesteev has reached the bronze ageweesteev has reached the bronze ageweesteev has reached the bronze age
Re: Virgin Media laying fibre in established VM areas?

The VHUB acts as a multiplexer, condensing down up to 3000 subscribers into trunks of 16f back to a headend/hubsite. All CMTS and broadcast equipment is still in the technical sites, the VHUB is just acting like a massive collector node/amplifier.

The star topology you refer to was the ex-Telewest network (point to point PDH generally) while the NTL network is generally built on fibre rings (redundant SDH).

HTH
__________________


Access Network Innovation @ Liberty Global/Virgin Media

All comments are my own opinion and not a direct expression of LG/VM.
weesteev is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 28-05-2017, 10:18   #10
roughbeast
cf.mega poster
 
roughbeast's Avatar
 
Join Date: Jul 2008
Location: Coventry
Services: Vodafone/City Fibre Gigafast 900
Posts: 1,781
roughbeast has reached the bronze age
roughbeast has reached the bronze ageroughbeast has reached the bronze ageroughbeast has reached the bronze ageroughbeast has reached the bronze ageroughbeast has reached the bronze ageroughbeast has reached the bronze ageroughbeast has reached the bronze ageroughbeast has reached the bronze ageroughbeast has reached the bronze ageroughbeast has reached the bronze ageroughbeast has reached the bronze age
Re: Virgin Media laying fibre in established VM areas?

I'm finding this exchange fascinating and illuminating guys. Thank you.

Of course, as a non-technical punter, I am particularly interested in when Virgin will throw the switch on all this new fibre and give us a symmetrical fibre service. I understand that it is also to do with the kit at nodes and at the VHUB, what is installed and how it is configured. This takes time and cash to modify. However, surely we cannot be far off the dream scenario in those areas that are having coax replaced by fibre.
__________________
Join Date: Jul 2008
Location: Coventry
Services: FACTCO/CityFibre 1GB FTTP; Asus GT-AX11000 +3 iMesh nodes; Humax 2Tb TV boxes x2; Synology DS920+ used as Plex server
roughbeast is online now   Reply With Quote
Old 28-05-2017, 11:15   #11
vm_tech
cf.addict
 
Join Date: May 2010
Posts: 336
vm_tech is a name known to allvm_tech is a name known to allvm_tech is a name known to allvm_tech is a name known to allvm_tech is a name known to allvm_tech is a name known to allvm_tech is a name known to allvm_tech is a name known to all
Re: Virgin Media laying fibre in established VM areas?

Quote:
Originally Posted by roughbeast View Post
I'm finding this exchange fascinating and illuminating guys. Thank you.

Of course, as a non-technical punter, I am particularly interested in when Virgin will throw the switch on all this new fibre and give us a symmetrical fibre service. I understand that it is also to do with the kit at nodes and at the VHUB, what is installed and how it is configured. This takes time and cash to modify. However, surely we cannot be far off the dream scenario in those areas that are having coax replaced by fibre.
15-20+ years at a minimum. Docsis 3.1 means that won't be needed for a fair while yet, otherwise the HFC network wouldn't be overbuilt where newer kit is needed (for more RF spectrum)
vm_tech is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 28-05-2017, 11:22   #12
Onramp
Inactive
 
Join Date: Sep 2016
Posts: 210
Onramp will become famous soon enoughOnramp will become famous soon enoughOnramp will become famous soon enough
Re: Virgin Media laying fibre in established VM areas?

Quote:
Originally Posted by weesteev View Post
The VHUB acts as a multiplexer, condensing down up to 3000 subscribers into trunks of 16f back to a headend/hubsite. All CMTS and broadcast equipment is still in the technical sites, the VHUB is just acting like a massive collector node/amplifier.

The star topology you refer to was the ex-Telewest network (point to point PDH generally) while the NTL network is generally built on fibre rings (redundant SDH).

HTH
Interesting stuff. I remember SDH being mentioned now in fact, but being about 15 at the time, those details were lost on me. I guess it's like having a ring main. I did wonder why there were so few lasers compared to nodes in the field.

National network used the ATM protocol, (which I assume is now probably MPLS based).

The Arris (for example) VHub PDFs online mention the use of DWDM feeds - I remember hearing that being spoken about in 1999/2000, as well as discussions about multimode vs single mode fibre. All the stuff in use was single mode I think. I guess this stuff has been converging for years.

Last edited by Onramp; 28-05-2017 at 11:30.
Onramp is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 28-05-2017, 14:23   #13
weesteev
Cable Guru
 
weesteev's Avatar
 
Join Date: Jun 2004
Location: Scotland
Age: 41
Services: Virgin Media Gig1 RFOG, TV360, Stream, GoFibre 1Gb
Posts: 1,049
weesteev has reached the bronze age
weesteev has reached the bronze ageweesteev has reached the bronze ageweesteev has reached the bronze ageweesteev has reached the bronze ageweesteev has reached the bronze ageweesteev has reached the bronze ageweesteev has reached the bronze ageweesteev has reached the bronze ageweesteev has reached the bronze age
Re: Virgin Media laying fibre in established VM areas?

Fprward and return lasers are solely for broadcast TV and broadband services, Telco is still provided on either legacy SDH/PDH gateways which have their own laser equipment or the newer Keymile/ECI broadgate gateways which again also act as their own laser/amplifier. The Telephony side of the network and RF distribution are completely different (unless you are lucky enough to live in one of the few digital voice areas).
__________________


Access Network Innovation @ Liberty Global/Virgin Media

All comments are my own opinion and not a direct expression of LG/VM.
weesteev is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 28-05-2017, 17:15   #14
Onramp
Inactive
 
Join Date: Sep 2016
Posts: 210
Onramp will become famous soon enoughOnramp will become famous soon enoughOnramp will become famous soon enough
Re: Virgin Media laying fibre in established VM areas?

Well, the "Digital Headend" was newer, larger, telephony oriented and very unmarked. You wouldn't know it was a telephone exchange by looking at it.

The hubsite was less discreet though and had always been the headend for our area for TV, at least. You could see the off-air receiption antennae and dish array from the road. A single 1.2m dish fed a rack of NDS receivers with sky cards in them and the other 15 or so dishes were mostly unused.

I have no idea whether newly built TV and broadband would still originate from the hubsite, or whether it would now be sent out from the newer, totally unmarked building that's not near the hubsite. I would guess it would depend on proximity.
Onramp is offline   Reply With Quote
Reply


Currently Active Users Viewing This Thread: 1 (0 members and 1 guests)
 
Thread Tools

Posting Rules
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts

BB code is On
Smilies are On
[IMG] code is On
HTML code is Off

Forum Jump


All times are GMT +1. The time now is 10:50.


Server: osmium.zmnt.uk
Powered by vBulletin® Version 3.8.11
Copyright ©2000 - 2024, vBulletin Solutions Inc.