Cabinets that provide no broadband coverage

Forums › New Zealand Broadband › Cabinets that provide no broadband coverage

influx

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Geek

#214416 10-May-2017 17:07

I've come across a few cabinets that don't seem to provide any broadband coverage to the area they're in. What's the deal with them?

They are usually white and located in rural areas.

Specs regarding two of such cabinets according to gis.geek.nz:

#1:

chorus: pia/e
type: pcm stc

copper: pia
fibre: hsn

#2:

chorus: glb/ad
type: pcm stc

copper: glb
fibre: pak

Is there any way to get chorus to connect one of these cabinets to a house if it is nearby, i.e. across the street?

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#1779181 10-May-2017 17:25

Voice trunks or passive cross connect. Not all cabinets will supply broadband for various reasons.

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thecatsgoolies

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#1779185 10-May-2017 17:36

Chorus will not change a house to another cabinet / exchange

influx

26 posts

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#1779673 11-May-2017 14:29

coffeebaron: Voice trunks or passive cross connect. Not all cabinets will supply broadband for various reasons.

What kind of reasons? Seems like a waste if the cabinet is outside your house and you're unable to get any kind of broadband.

thecatsgoolies:

Chorus will not change a house to another cabinet / exchange

The issue isn't changing cabinets, it's why the only cabinet in your area doesn't provide broadband.

RunningMan

8953 posts

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#1779677 11-May-2017 14:32

Because it's just there to join copper cables together - there's no active electronics in cross connect cabinets.

cr250bromo

222 posts

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#1779687 11-May-2017 14:51

If it's a PCM cabinet it was likely done in the early 90s sometime to provide improved voice services - long before anyone was thinking about broadband.

DarkShadow

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#1779689 11-May-2017 14:52

influx:

coffeebaron: Voice trunks or passive cross connect. Not all cabinets will supply broadband for various reasons.

What kind of reasons? Seems like a waste if the cabinet is outside your house and you're unable to get any kind of broadband.

thecatsgoolies:

Chorus will not change a house to another cabinet / exchange

The issue isn't changing cabinets, it's why the only cabinet in your area doesn't provide broadband.

Chorus is in the business of making money. If they can't make enough money from your area then they're not going to upgrade your area.

To help roll out broadband to more people, the government already used our tax dollars to pay Chorus to upgrade more than a thousand cabinets, and they might do more in the future.

sbiddle

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#1779828 11-May-2017 19:16

There are literally thousands of cabinets in NZ that don't provide broadband services. These range from simple cross connect cabinets to active PCM and VMUX cabinets providing voice services over copper feeders. I'm pretty sure there are still lots of the Nokia cabinets around also.

As for the question

Is there any way to get chorus to connect one of these cabinets to a house if it is nearby, i.e. across the street?

I'm totally lost by what this means. If you have a voice service you will likely be connected to the closest cabinet.

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quickymart

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#1779952 12-May-2017 00:04

influx:

coffeebaron: Voice trunks or passive cross connect. Not all cabinets will supply broadband for various reasons.

What kind of reasons? Seems like a waste if the cabinet is outside your house and you're unable to get any kind of broadband.

thecatsgoolies:

Chorus will not change a house to another cabinet / exchange

The issue isn't changing cabinets, it's why the only cabinet in your area doesn't provide broadband.

I used to have one of these quite near my old place (in suburban Birkenhead) that provided voice services only, but my DSL was provided by the exchange (about 600m away).

influx

26 posts

Geek

#1781676 13-May-2017 15:26

Now I see, thanks to the responses for clearing it up.

I thought it was strange that some of these white cabinets in rural areas provided ADSL/VDSL while others nothing at all.

I'm totally lost by what this means. If you have a voice service you will likely be connected to the closest cabinet.

One place had a cabinet outside a small school, I thought the cabinets purpose was to provide broadband to that school only, and if it was possible to connect the house across the street from it also in that case. But from the replies here it would suggest that cabinet isn't capable of supplying broadband at all anyway.

atomeara

324 posts

Ultimate Geek

#1781704 13-May-2017 16:50

You have opened up a can of worms with these questions, the school in question on Lone Kauri Road does have fibre.

The cabinet however is not a broadband cabinet. Depending on the outcome of RBI stage 2 I think it is a safe beat it will be upgraded to support ADSL and VDSL, it would be an easy install for Chorus as the fibre is there and I do question how well any mobile network could cover those hilly areas down there, meaning upgraded copper would be the best option

As far as getting fibre goes, the local cabinet may or may not play a part. It depends on the type of fibre you want and a few other things. You can get an ISP to do an NGA on Application and they can get you a price for the UFB install.

It is likely the pit outside the cabinet where the fibre is can be connected too. Expect the price to be thousands. The cheapest I have seen is about 2k and the most is over 300k (that one needed 5km of new fibre run down some country roads). If you are right by it, I would guess between 5k and 12k. Prob not something you want to hear.

Here is my data on both cabinets, for some reason the Chorus baseband spreadsheet has 2 cabinets for GLB with that ID, most like an error.

The gis.geek.nz website is often wrong about fibre and copper feds to cabinets but a great tool to find cabinets.

I assume you are at Glenbrook Beach, the cabinet there is not fibre fed and there is no fibre near by. Broadband for that area is fed of GLB\AA which is near Brookside Road, I have put a manual prequal in to get a bit more info about if ADSL is orderable or not. Given it is Baseband PCM and not Baseband Copper I suspect not.

influx

26 posts

Geek

#1781723 13-May-2017 18:25

Interesting. So usually PCM/Nokia cabinets mean no ADSL/VDSL? Is the geek.gis.nz data accurate on these next few cabinets then as they're both showing up in VDSL zones on Chorus maps:

chorus: kpa/m
type: pcm/stc

copper: kpa
fibre: hl

chorus: kf/a
type: nokia 480

copper: kf
fibre: ww

And then still in roughly the same area (Makarau/Kaipara Flats) these two don't show as having anything. But there is a possibility they will be upgraded due to RBI2?

chorus: kf/d
type: nokia 60
copper: kf
fibre: ww

chorus: kpa/ag
type: cab vynckier 400
copper: kpa
fibre: hl

I've asked Orcon about the broadband availability to a house that is nearest (but still quite far) to the kf/d nokia cabinet and they said VDSL is available, error perhaps?

atomeara

324 posts

Ultimate Geek

#1781727 13-May-2017 18:34

I would not use the data from gis.geek.nz for anything other than location.

Generally I find the cabinet and over lay it with the public Chorus map

https://www.chorus.co.nz/broadband-options/for-business/broadband-map

If it shows the dark brown it means VDSL

KPA and KF cabs are below, most are VDSL

atomeara

324 posts

Ultimate Geek

#1781730 13-May-2017 18:44

I am expecting most of the BUBA legacy cabs to be upgraded.

KPA\K and KPA\N were going to be upgraded this year but got dropped when they cut the number.

Depending on RBI 2 will depending just how many and how fast they all get done.

They are doing Huia at the moment and running fibre down the road for it

coffeebaron

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#1781748 13-May-2017 19:35

atomeara:
I am expecting most of the BUBA legacy cabs to be upgraded.

KPA\K and KPA\N were going to be upgraded this year but got dropped when they cut the number.

Depending on RBI 2 will depending just how many and how fast they all get done.

They are doing Huia at the moment and running fibre down the road for it

Huia, that's been a long time coming. Cornwallis as well?

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atomeara

324 posts

Ultimate Geek

#1781749 13-May-2017 19:38

Yup both Cornwallis cabinet + Huia hut/exchange

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