On a recent visit to Dartmouth in Devon, I noticed these black boxes screwed to the walls of the houses and shops in the village…
I think they are some kind of optical distribution node for BT OpenReach’s ultra-fast broadband service. As a broadband nerd, I found it interesting to see this approach used in these tightly-packed streets where space for ‘green boxes’ is limited. Here’s another example…
I saw plenty of these located around the village but none of them seemed to be in-use. Some of the installations seemed a bit ramshackled, the fibre feeds were often cable-tied to other cables or pipes; the second example shows a large reel of fibre cable suggesting that the distribution could be relocated if necessary.
I’m always glad to seem ultra-fast fibre broadband being rolled-out and I like this approach for high-density and terraced streets. I hope it goes well and that the businesses and residence of Dartmouth start using fibre broadband very soon.
Update – I saw these again at the weekend, this time installed at the top of telephone poles in Nottingham. I guess that they’ll be used from there to provide FTTP to homes connected to those poles. I wonder if the engineer removes the old copper cable before installing the new fibre connection or simply uses the cooper cable to carry the new fibre cable.
In my experience, fibre cables are delicate, I wonder how long they’ll last swinging backwards and forwards in the wind for year-after-year.