Chorus _may_ put UFB on power poles

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#765596 19-Feb-2013 09:34

sbiddle:

Nobody steals existing copper now. While lifespan is an issue, TCL's HFC network has now been overhead in Wellington and Kapiti for ~15 years and Christchurch for a few years less, and the number of major outages due to overhead cabling has been pretty minimal.

The best outage we had when i was at Saturn was some local decided it was a good idea to shoot a possum of the pole we had fibre on. It was such a fluke shot it went through the cable, it took the techs a while to find the break, because it was not an obvious pole down sort of situation.

We did have copper stolen, but there is no value in stealing fibre off a pole...

Other than that we had very few issues.

Oh, it was about 10x more expensive to build underground, numbers above are about right. And that was for only two ducts, in road, no concrete etc.

People just dont like to look at the cables.

meat popsicle

RunningMan

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#765602 19-Feb-2013 09:59

sbiddle:
joker97: risk of theft?

Nobody steals existing copper now.

Just last month. http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10858383 Obviously power cables are more lucrative given the conductor size....

Zeon

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#765637 19-Feb-2013 10:56

Why not have council owned ducts that can be used by power networks and telecom's networks? Copper wouldn't work so well telecom's wise but it would be fine for fibre? May save costs on digging up roads repeatedly.

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Ragnor

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#765680 19-Feb-2013 11:51

Zeon: Why not have council owned ducts that can be used by power networks and telecom's networks? Copper wouldn't work so well telecom's wise but it would be fine for fibre? May save costs on digging up roads repeatedly.

Yeah a national duct network is a natural monopoly, a public good like roads or the water/waste water network. Generally you only want to build one.

It should be planned and run as such.

chevrolux

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#765730 19-Feb-2013 12:50

DarthKermit:
chevrolux: When Chorus get here they sure as hell wont be hanging a drop lead across. It will be trenched. It is just so dam ugly as well.

Would you be prepared to dig your own trench to your house if Chorus bitched about the cost of going underground?

Yep! It is only 5m like every other house in the area.

Ok so fair point about rocky areas but I just dont think it should go on poles simply because they are already there. More thought, and money, needs to go in to it if it can be UG'ed.

graemeh

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#765745 19-Feb-2013 13:14

chevrolux: Ok so fair point about rocky areas but I just dont think it should go on poles simply because they are already there. More thought, and money, needs to go in to it if it can be UG'ed.

There is also the time, an aerial drop is much faster than drilling or trenching. It is not just a question of money but how long it will take to connect every house this way.

I would like a UFB connection this decade and if everything has to go underground then I really can't see that happening.

ptinson

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#765747 19-Feb-2013 13:25

Ragnor:
Zeon: Why not have council owned ducts that can be used by power networks and telecom's networks? Copper wouldn't work so well telecom's wise but it would be fine for fibre? May save costs on digging up roads repeatedly.

Yeah a national duct network is a natural monopoly, a public good like roads or the water/waste water network. Generally you only want to build one.

It should be planned and run as such.

I can quite honestly say i never see this working.
To get access to new ducts you would have to use the online toll gateway payment system for each packet passed the bypass duct.
It would create jobs though, and isnt that what the magical UFB is meant to do?

meat popsicle

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DarthKermit

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#765754 19-Feb-2013 13:36

chevrolux:
DarthKermit:
chevrolux: When Chorus get here they sure as hell wont be hanging a drop lead across. It will be trenched. It is just so dam ugly as well.

Would you be prepared to dig your own trench to your house if Chorus bitched about the cost of going underground?

Yep! It is only 5m like every other house in the area.

I'd dig my own trench too; not because I'm worried about it going overhead (it wont), so it'll go exactly where I want it. I know there's a stormwater pipe crossing our front lawn that needs to be avoided.

Whatifthespacekeyhadneverbeeninvented?

OrangePeel

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#768521 24-Feb-2013 14:41

As some have mentioned, it looked like Chorus are trenching between poles down one side of the street and going up each pole to a junction, then doing aerial drop from there. Seems a little silly to go to all that trenching effort just to go up the poles, but I imagine it's easy enough to properly underground later if the other services start to be delivered underground.

I've attached some photos of the UFB lay that just happened down our street in Petone. It's not live yet. All other services are off the pole too, and it seems there's still a tiny bit of room left next to the TCL cables on the pole...

DarthKermit

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#768525 24-Feb-2013 14:55

OrangePeel: As some have mentioned, it looked like Chorus are trenching between poles down one side of the street and going up each pole to a junction, then doing aerial drop from there. Seems a little silly to go to all that trenching effort just to go up the poles, but I imagine it's easy enough to properly underground later if the other services start to be delivered underground.

I've attached some photos of the UFB lay that just happened down our street in Petone. It's not live yet. All other services are off the pole too, and it seems there's still a tiny bit of room left next to the TCL cables on the pole...

Looks pretty ugly with all that hanging off the poles.

Whatifthespacekeyhadneverbeeninvented?

antoniosk

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#768527 24-Feb-2013 15:00

I agree. Yik.

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Antoniosk

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#768530 24-Feb-2013 15:06

Looking at the pic ... how rotten does a pole need to be before it gets or needs replacing

heavyusr

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#768540 24-Feb-2013 15:51

I have recently seen in my area some lines(power lines? phone lines?) that come down from a pole and are clamped down on the road and travel across the street. Cars drive over them but is it safe to walk on them and touch them?

sbiddle

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#768541 24-Feb-2013 15:53

joker97: Looking at the pic ... how rotten does a pole need to be before it gets or needs replacing

That pole isn't rotten, it's just had a hard life.

The poles are the responsibility of the lines company who typically do a fairly good job of maintaining an asset register and replacement schedules. Chorus do own some poles which aer typically used if it's not possible for an overhead drop to go to a property without passing over another properly, as this isn't allowed.

Kraven

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#768616 24-Feb-2013 21:27

heavyusr: I have recently seen in my area some lines(power lines? phone lines?) that come down from a pole and are clamped down on the road and travel across the street. Cars drive over them but is it safe to walk on them and touch them?

Sounds more like the gear they lay across the road to count cars rather than something falling off a pole. There shouldn't be anything unsafe at ground level but just to be sure lick your fingers first before touching it!

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