Connecting fibre to copper line

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agilechris

4 posts

Wannabe Geek

#280467 16-Dec-2020 13:31

Usual up-front apologies if this is an idiotic idea.

My situation

Very long way from gate to house (200m +)
Aging overhead electrical and phone lines, lots of trees.
No fibre down our road, ADSL only.

The plan - bury the overhead power and phone lines if economically possible.

My question is twofold:

Is it possible for me to run fibre down to the drive, and then convert/connect it to the copper loop?
Would this mean I wouldn't have to separate the power and fibre in the trench (saving a lot of digging)?

I obviously don't expect any major improvement in speed with copper still being the bottleneck, but if I could trench the two together, or run them in the same conduit, it would be handy - and maybe when eventually fibre comes down our semi-rural road - I might be all set.

Any knowledgeable thoughts much appreciated!

wratterus

1687 posts

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#2622720 16-Dec-2020 13:51

Media Converters are pretty cheap these days, but won't achieve what you want in this situation, unless you put your modem down the end of the driveway. That could be worth considering though, as losing 200m off your phone line will help with sync speeds. You would need power & a weather tight enclosure at the road end for anything like this to work.

Regulations around separation are a little complex and I'm not up with the latest...sure someone here will be. I think the min when in the same trench was 150mm vertical but don't quote me on that. Power should be 600mm deep min I think. As long as you put conduit in, even if you did put phone cable in initially, it shouldn't be a big drama to change it out later. Wouldn't be at all silly to put a handhole in half way along the comms conduit regardless of what you end up doing.

Pre-terminated fibre is getting very cheap to buy, so you could run a CAT6 and a pre-terminated fibre through the conduit, and just use a pair on the CAT6 for the phone line, or get Optic@t cable, you would need to get the Fibre terminated to use that though.

sbiddle

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#2622722 16-Dec-2020 13:54

Fibre is going to deliver zero benefits, and even if you did somehow put a modem and media converter at the end of the drive you're going to need power to run it.

cyril7

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#2622741 16-Dec-2020 14:18

So what are your current line stats, as sbiddle says, removing 200m of cable will most likely have little impact if you are on ADSL.

Cyril

wratterus

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#2622744 16-Dec-2020 14:21

Edit - sorry for some reason I read VDSL, not ADSL. 200m could make a pretty big difference on VDSL, but as cyril mention not so much on ADSL.

wellygary

8312 posts

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#2622756 16-Dec-2020 14:39

agilechris:

My question is twofold:

Is it possible for me to run fibre down to the drive, and then convert/connect it to the copper loop?
Would this mean I wouldn't have to separate the power and fibre in the trench (saving a lot of digging)?

Mixing Fibre and Copper to deliver you service is simply a bag of hammers and asking for trouble,

If you can trench the power, then do so, at the same time stick a spare duct in the ground ( you can use the same hole if you obey the required separation requirement that are spec'd in this)

https://www.chorus.co.nz/themes/custom/chorus_consumer/components/assets/docs/property-development/Lead-ins-and-trenching-brochure.pdf

Leave the existing copper alone, and then pray that you get included in UFB3/4/?

nztim

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#2622958 16-Dec-2020 17:32

what is your current mine attenuation? 200m wont reduce it by much

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agilechris

4 posts

Wannabe Geek

#2622983 16-Dec-2020 18:43

Thanks for the replies - much appreciated. To be clear, I had no expectation of improving my speed - just avoiding the hassle of separating the phone from the power (I think by 300mm) and all the extra conduit.

As an added complicaiton, literally five minutes after posting, I was told that I can get wireless broadband here (the Spark website still determinedly tells me it's not available) - so a better option might be to ditch any connection to copper at all. Feels a bit like a leap in the dark though - although I could put the whole cable burying project on hold until I can be sure of the quality of the wireless approach.

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nztim

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#2622998 16-Dec-2020 19:20

the ageing overhead phone line is that ribbon or twisted pair?

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elpenguino

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#2623004 16-Dec-2020 19:37

If you're burying the power cable I'd strongly encourage you to add an extra duct, even if you leave it empty.

Most of the posters in this thread are just like chimpanzees on MDMA, full of feelings of bonhomie, joy, and optimism. Fred99 8/4/21