History Question: what were those late 90's green plastic cabinets for ? (May have only been Wlg)

Forums › Spark New Zealand (including Skinny and BigPipe) › History Question: what were those late 90's green plastic cabinets for ? (May have only been Wlg)

mainlydata

54 posts

Master Geek

#196133 20-May-2016 11:56

Just wondering if anyone can remember this.

In the late 1990's Telecom rolled out some sort of broadband offering. I'm almost certain it pre-dated their implementation of xDSL. Only some suburbs got it in Wellington and it may have only been available in Wellington.

The pale green cabinets are still around. They're distinctive because they're made of a plastic rather than the more familiar metal type things. Size would be a metre high and perhaps 60 cm x 30 cm footprint.

Can anyone tell me what the technology was and what caused it be abandoned ?

Thanks

wellygary

4915 posts

Uber Geek

#1556174 20-May-2016 12:10

Telecom ran a short lived HFC cable network called FirstMedia in a number of suburbs around Wellington (I think Karori was one) and the North Shore in Auckland , but they abandoned it fairly quickly and focussed on ADSL instead...

It was in competition to the Wellington rollout of Saturn Cable TV

Quacko

20 posts

Geek

#1556184 20-May-2016 12:30

Also rolled out in Pakuranga/Howick

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_TV

richms

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#1556187 20-May-2016 12:33

Imagine if they had not abandoned it, the whole country would be in a kapiti situation...

Richard rich.ms

mainlydata

54 posts

Master Geek

#1556195 20-May-2016 12:45

Thanks for excellent replies. I'd completely forgotten the whole idea of it being primarily for TV, I'd assumed it was some sort of early internet offering.

BTW that "kapiti situation" reference ... don't quite follow that ? I know Saturn (or whatever they were called pre-telstra) wired up Kapiti but do you mean that's a good situation or a bad one ? Feeling dim now ;-)

Dairyxox

1525 posts

Uber Geek

#1556230 20-May-2016 13:11

LOL

See here to get informed: Krapi Cable Congestion?

Currently 2,500 posts over 175 pages, about how terrible the cable offering has become.

sbiddle

29213 posts

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#1556256 20-May-2016 13:27

Sounds like you're looking at a Chorus ABFAT, not a Telecom HFC pedestal. They aren't 1m high

Here's a Telecom HFC pedestal which is metal

Here's a Chorus ABFAT which is an incredibly high density plastic

In Wellington the HFC network was deployed underground in parts of Lower Hutt and Whitby and overhead in Silverstream, Karori, Wadestown/Northland and Mt Victoria. All the overhead cable was eventually removed. All the underground cable and pedestals remain.

wellygary

4915 posts

Uber Geek

#1556262 20-May-2016 13:36

richms:

Imagine if they had not abandoned it, the whole country would be in a kapiti situation...

It would have probably resulted in the development of something similar to NBN in Australia,

Whereas the lack of any nation-wide Cable TV infrastructure could be seen as one of the contributors to the decision to go full FTTP,

and NZ will be all the better for it...

quickymart

5576 posts

Uber Geek

#1556413 20-May-2016 16:49

What does an ABFAT do/what does it supply, if anything?

sbiddle

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#1556416 20-May-2016 16:53

There have been a lot of posts on here about UFB architecture but here's a rough view of the ABFAT. This came after the original cabinets. https://www.chorus.co.nz/file/48842/Presentation-and-build-update-16-May-2013.pdf

Most ABFAT's are now a different design and located in pits.