Aerial fibre is coming to our street - what is this "black box"?

Forums › New Zealand Broadband › Aerial fibre is coming to our street - what is this "black box"?

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#259968 3-Nov-2019 19:17

I live in a hilly seaside suburb of Wellington - currently an "HFC cable area".

Fibre is now being installed in our street, and most fibre connections will be aerial - like our current power, DSL copper, and cable connections.

Black conduit has been strung between utility poles, and numbered "black boxes" attached to each pole.

What are these boxes called, and what is their function?

I can't find them on Google.

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DjShadow

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#2347849 3-Nov-2019 19:33

Short answer is this is what your fibre connection is going to be connected to when installed (assuming you want away from cable)

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#2347850 3-Nov-2019 19:35

that's a 5G distribution device.

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Intravix

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#2347853 3-Nov-2019 19:45

That's a FAT aka. Fibre Access Terminal. In an aerial install, a duct (tube) will go from the end user premise to the FAT serving it, and there will be a single tube I believe going to the cabinet. In an underground build there is usually a duct allocated per premises (sometimes more, and some spares), but obviously with an aerial install having 24-way/whatever ducts hanging between poles would probably be way too heavy and (more) unsightly.

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#2347855 3-Nov-2019 20:23

hio77: that's a 5G distribution device.

Bad boy! Something similar like a WLAN cable? ;-)

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#2347856 3-Nov-2019 20:24

Tinkerisk:

hio77: that's a 5G distribution device.

Bad boy! Something similar like a WLAN cable? ;-)

... or lossless MP3? 🙃

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toejam316

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#2347857 3-Nov-2019 20:31

Mind Control Tower. Move along, nothing to see.

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#2347862 3-Nov-2019 20:49

toejam316:

Mind Control Tower. Move along, nothing to see.

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#2347900 4-Nov-2019 07:01

Sideface:
I live in a hilly seaside suburb of Wellington - currently an "HFC cable area".

Fibre is now being installed in our street, and most fibre connections will be aerial - like our current power, DSL copper, and cable connections.

Black conduit has been strung between utility poles, and numbered "black boxes" attached to each pole.

Is there any logic other than progress of time fine tuning the costs involved in how the installls are designed. Our hilly Wellington street has aerial copper but the fibre is underground between poles and only goes up the pole for the aerial drops to the houses.
At our beach house where most houses have underground copper and the berm is fine golden sand, apparently we will also be fed from pole tops. We've had a duct like green water pipe trenched from our drive to the pole up the street. The underground pillar for the fibre is about the same distance in the other direction. The point is that the poles that until now have only had power lines between them will have Chorus fibre hanging under them.

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#2347906 4-Nov-2019 07:52

Thats the blackbox that will have a black cable running down the pole. Very easy access for drunken yobos to take a hatchet to and disrupt an entire streets connection.

Friends street has the cables down every single post in their street - unfortunately they do get the odd drunken mob wandering through...... thankfully for him none of them have decided to try yanking/cutting on the cables :) Yet.

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#2347910 4-Nov-2019 08:18

xpd:

Thats the blackbox that will have a black cable running down the pole. Very easy access for drunken yobos to take a hatchet to and disrupt an entire streets connection.

Friends street has the cables down every single post in their street - unfortunately they do get the odd drunken mob wandering through...... thankfully for him none of them have decided to try yanking/cutting on the cables :) Yet.

If you look carefully at the Chorus overhead as in the OP's picture, the uplink fibre comes from above the FAT, most other premise drops will also be back up the pole and dropped overhead to each house, the only feeds coming down the pole are to premises, not the uplink.

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#2348020 4-Nov-2019 10:28

Sideface:

I live in a hilly seaside suburb of Wellington - currently an "HFC cable area". Fibre is now being installed in our street ...

Just to clarify, my original post gives a simplified version of what is happening in our (long) street.

My house is at the intersection of two new fibre networks under construction:

The coastal / flatter end of the street has underground green conduits ("Direct Bury Duct Assemblies") running under the footpath, connected to utility poles from below.
The inland / hillier end of the street has overhead self-supporting black conduit between utility poles, connected to FATs (thank you, @Intravix) intended for aerial connections.

The underground option makes more mess a street level, the overhead option gives some pretty crowded utility poles ...

(click to view)

from top to bottom:

mains power, street lighting, UFB conduit (at right - terminates at this pole), HFC lashed cable bundle, DSL copper cables, FAT

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