Chorus _may_ put UFB on power poles

Forums › New Zealand Broadband › Chorus _may_ put UFB on power poles

1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5

904 posts

Ultimate Geek

Trusted

#768658 24-Feb-2013 23:57

DarthKermit:
Looks pretty ugly with all that hanging off the poles.

Looks fine to me. I don't spend a lot of time looking at what is on the tops of power poles.
Also considering what it'll deliver, they could paint it all fluorescent orange and I'd still be perfectly happy with it on the pole outside my house. :)

DarthKermit

5346 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

#769002 25-Feb-2013 16:41

Chorus warns of UFB network cost blowout

Chorus says it will cost about $300 million more than expected to build its share of the ultrafast broadband network.The company this morning reported a "pleasing" $84 million interim net profit but warned it was incurring unexpected and "extreme" civil engineering costs building its 70 per cent share of the ultrafast broadband (UFB) network in some areas.

Those costs have led Chorus to revise up its estimate of the capital cost of laying its share of the UFB network as far as the street from $1.4 billion to $1.6b, to between $1.7b and $1.9b. That estimate does not include the cost of connecting homes and businesses to the communal network.

The interim profit, for the six months to December 31, was achieved on a 2 per cent rise in revenue to $525m and earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation (Ebitda) of $331m.

It announced a fully-imputed interim dividend of 10 cents and forecast a total dividend of 25.5c for the full financial year.

Chief executive Mark Ratcliffe said while Chorus had reduced UFB deployment costs in about 90 per cent of the areas in which it was building ultrafast broadband, it did "not anticipate the extreme costs in the remaining 10 per cent of areas".

"This is specifically because of the significant variability in regional compliance requirements and civil work that is driving up the cost per premises passed," he said.

As a result, the average cost of laying UFB past premises had risen from between $2500 to $2700 per premise to between $2900 and $3200 during the half year.

Ratcliffe confirmed that Chorus was looking at "alternative deployment approaches" in some areas to keep a lid on costs.

These are understood to include laying more fibre overhead on power poles, rather than burying it in underground ducts.

Whatifthespacekeyhadneverbeeninvented?

raytaylor

4014 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

#770487 26-Feb-2013 14:09

National duct network -
Wasnt there talk of telecom opening up their ducts for a per-metre yearly fee or something like that (as part of the UFB) if a competitor wanted to lay their own physical fibre?

Power poles -
I think its better if chorus put the fibre up on power poles wherever possible. When the lines company converts the lines to underground, chorus can split the trenching cost with the power lines company.

In Napier, Unison had the suburb of Onekawa done in about 2 days. One guy went around and put up hooks about 1m below the mains cable on the poles. Then two other guys had very long pokey sticks and they walked along underneath and hooked up the ducting to the poles.
As connections are ordered, fibre is blown through the overhead ducts to the GEPON head / optical splitter to serve the customer.

Ray Taylor

There is no place like localhost

Spreadsheet for Comparing Electricity Plans Here

Oriphix

523 posts

Ultimate Geek

#770492 26-Feb-2013 14:15

Only problem I can see having it on power lines is some places have big trees next to it. If bad weather or in general someone cuts the tress and breaks the cable that would be bad.

stuzzo

534 posts

Ultimate Geek

#770494 26-Feb-2013 14:16

raytaylor: In Napier, Unison had the suburb of Onekawa done in about 2 days. One guy went around and put up hooks about 1m below the mains cable on the poles. Then two other guys had very long pokey sticks and they walked along underneath and hooked up the ducting to the poles.
As connections are ordered, fibre is blown through the overhead ducts to the GEPON head / optical splitter to serve the customer.

How cool is that? I love simple solutions.

DarthKermit

5346 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

#770605 26-Feb-2013 16:41

raytaylor: Power poles -
I think its better if chorus put the fibre up on power poles wherever possible. When the lines company converts the lines to underground, chorus can split the trenching cost with the power lines company.

In Napier, Unison had the suburb of Onekawa done in about 2 days. One guy went around and put up hooks about 1m below the mains cable on the poles. Then two other guys had very long pokey sticks and they walked along underneath and hooked up the ducting to the poles.
As connections are ordered, fibre is blown through the overhead ducts to the GEPON head / optical splitter to serve the customer.

Is there a programme in Napier to underground the remaining streets? I had a look on street view and it appears that the vast majority are already underground.

Whatifthespacekeyhadneverbeeninvented?

wired

187 posts

Master Geek

#770864 27-Feb-2013 08:23

Oriphix: Only problem I can see having it on power lines is some places have big trees next to it. If bad weather or in general someone cuts the tress and breaks the cable that would be bad.

My experience is that often if a tree falls on a power lines that also have fibre on them or a car hits a power pole, the power lines snap but the fibre stays intact and holds the pole up. Also the fibre is installed below the power lines so a falling tree hits the power lines first and they protect the fibre.

The ADSS fibre cables are very tough!

Equinox IT

Cloud spending continues to surge globally, but most organisations haven’t made the changes necessary to maximise the value and cost-efficiency benefits of their cloud investments. Download the whitepaper From Overspend to Advantage now.

LWJCarroll

138 posts

Master Geek

#771394 28-Feb-2013 00:25

sbiddle:
joker97: risk of theft?

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.

Yes they do..... out in the Waiuku/Pukekohe area....its mentioned in the police reports etc in our local paper although its been a few months since the last time...Rgds...Laurie

LWJCarroll

138 posts

Master Geek

#771395 28-Feb-2013 00:30

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?

Mmmm wonder if its some one illegally tapping power from the network....drugs etc..??....

Skolink

1081 posts

Uber Geek

#771639 28-Feb-2013 11:56

LWJCarroll:
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?

Mmmm wonder if its some one illegally tapping power from the network....drugs etc..??....

Isn't that for measuring traffic flow? THe box is on the pole to keep people from tripping / damaging it.

raytaylor

4014 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

#772088 1-Mar-2013 09:12

DarthKermit:

Is there a programme in Napier to underground the remaining streets? I had a look on street view and it appears that the vast majority are already underground.

Yes - Unison have a yearly budget to spend on undergrounding.
It seems they usually do big chunks at a time.
Eg. they wont just do a street at a time in each area - they will focus the yearly budget on a specific suburb and do as much as they can.

Ray Taylor

There is no place like localhost

Spreadsheet for Comparing Electricity Plans Here

DarthKermit

5346 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

#772221 1-Mar-2013 12:22

raytaylor:
DarthKermit:

Is there a programme in Napier to underground the remaining streets? I had a look on street view and it appears that the vast majority are already underground.

Yes - Unison have a yearly budget to spend on undergrounding.
It seems they usually do big chunks at a time.
Eg. they wont just do a street at a time in each area - they will focus the yearly budget on a specific suburb and do as much as they can.

Thanks for that Ray. I looked on Unison's website and I couldn't seem to find a link to any of their future undergrounding programmes. Do you know of one?

Most of Palmy where I live has been undergrounded; bar around 40 - 50 streets. It looks a lot nicer with no overhead wires.

Whatifthespacekeyhadneverbeeninvented?

richms

28176 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

Lifetime subscriber

#773702 2-Mar-2013 20:14

I dont really care about overground wires in the street. Im in the car and unless I bend foward and look up dont really see them.

What I do care about is getting better internet, soon.

Anyway, At work they replaced all the footpaths with new concrete (and managed to rip up the phone cable too) - there is new green ducting going in to the corner of buildings, which was put in by chorus so I assume is for fiber.

Its not on year 2 or 3 maps, but does the ducts going in with other work bump the install dates up? Desperatly need it at work.

Also how do they provision basic rate over fiber? Different ONT or not something they are worried about yet since there is still copper there?

Richard rich.ms