Leased Line - Extension Question

jurassic86

jurassic86

jurassic86

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14 Feb 2023
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Location
Lincolnshire
Hello,

I have applied to TTB for a leased line 100/1GB to my premises which looks to now be going through.

Initially I requested a quotation directly to my premises but the install costs were in excess of £20k.

I live in a rural farm and we own the gate house which is at the foot of the driveway (500m away). Installing FTTP to this dwelling is well within the £2,800 installation cost they agree to cover and my intention is to carry the fibre up the drive myself, essentially extending the fibre network.

Halfway up the driveway I have a lamp post with OM3 8 Core Cable which feeds a switch and some CCTV equipment which is linked to my home network, and I had originally planned to run the cable upto this point and get the fibres patched together... But I've seen looked and now see OM3 isn't recommended above 300/400m.

TTB also asked what fibre I wanted, Single Mode or Multi Mode and given I already had multi mode I asked for the Multi Mode, but now here to ask for some advice on what to do moving forward.

Do I install my router at the point where the fibre is terminated by open reach and then run a fibre in OM3 to my lamp post, or do I splice and carry on the fibre line that Open reach install and take all the way to my premises in Single Mode fibre then link it into my existing Multi Mode fibre site?

Any help would be great.
 
You're using FTTP and leased line interchangeably which you shouldn't really be doing, they're different products and have different installation methods.

With that said, did you speak to the surveyor when they came out about the options to get the fibre back to your house? I assume the massive quote was for them digging to your house but the option of you burying duct yourself is always there - Openreach will supply you with the materials once a plan has been agreed. They could also put 7 or 8 poles in along your driveway and put the fibre on the top of it. The advantage of doing this is that you then have an option for any future FTTP services that might come along.

The demarcation for the leased line is the NTE that Openreach will install, so you need power wherever this is going to be put. The network side is always single-mode fibre. The access side can be either multimode or single-mode (or copper RJ45 in certain situation). If you went down this route you'd be putting the NTE in the gate house (which has power?) and then running your own fibre back to the house to plug into the TalkTalk router. At the distances you're talking it should really be single-mode.
 
Hey

Yes thanks for your reply and apologies, it is a leased line and not FTTP.

Our gate house has power and understand ref single mode on the network side but why do they ask if I want it in multi mode or single mode?

Ref the router, talktalk lease a Cisco one and wondered if anyone has any feedback on a preferred model. I have a full Ubiquiti mesh system at the house and buildings so just need something that can handle this speed. They also want £100 to set it up, not sure how difficult it is to do or if it's worth asking them to do it for me?
 
Are you sur it’s a leased line? 100/1Gbps would indicate it’s asymmetric which is not normal on a leased line. 100/100 or 1Gbps/1Gbps would be more normal.

While a fibre would be optimal you can also do this sort of distance by radio. MikroTik Wireless Wire LHG will do 2Gbps over a 60GHz link and at about £200 it’s pretty cheap. Or the Wireless Wire Cube will do 1Gbps with a 250Mbps fallback over 5GHz if you get really extreme rainfall or thick snow.

Ultimately though, put in the Single Mode Fibre and run it the whole way uninterrupted if you can.
 
Hello,

Yes so they say 100mb up and down but with a gigabit of capacity if I wished to upgrade.

Radio links we considered before and one of the reasons for us taking a fibre link to the lamp post, as if has a basic line of sight but.the driveway is tree lined and in bad weather our other link was a little unreliable.
 
Ok, so 100Mbps on 1Gb bearer. That makes sense.

As others have said, single mode fibre is the way to go. Don't be tempted to try and extend the Openreach fibre down to the farm either by splicing or using a coupler. Leave the NTE alone and run some SM fibre.

If you're taking a managed service then I'd be surprised if you get a choice of CPE. If you've never worked with Cisco kit then it's definitely worth paying £100 to get someone to set it up for you. The config won't be all that difficult.
 
They aren't yours to extend, their responsibility ends at where they put their termination equipment. If you extend the network side of the fibre and then you have a fibre fault, how do you know who is responsible? What happens if you raise it as a fault and Openreach attend and find that it's on the fibre you added?
 
Many moons ago my company acquired a business that had a 2Mbps leased line, the fibre for which got damaged with a cabling company installed a new rack. Said company repaired the fibre by cutting and splicing. It worked fine for years.

When there was a fault on the circuit Openreach came, found the splice and walked away. The only way that they would deal with the fault is by blowing in a new fibre which the end customer had to pickup the costs for. With all the back and forth that circuit was down for almost a month.

Leave that fibre alone.
 
Yes I get that but could we not extend the fibre by using a patch panel to loop the two fibres together? Instead of splicing? I suspect this is what you was referring to?
 
You've come here for advice and you're getting advice, but it seems like what you actually wanted was people to agree with you.

If you patch the network side fibre into something that isn't the Openreach NTE then their engineers will walk away if they attend a fault call. It's entirely up to you whether you want to take the chance and have to move the NTE back to the gatehouse if there's ever a problem.
 
Sorry if it comes across this way but I think it's more my lack of understanding on a lot of the terms you refer to in your replies, and also in how the service terminates on my premises.

I just assumed they bring the fibre into the site and leave it in a patch panel, but I think NTE refers to the termination equipment, and maybe what I'm trying to understand is exactly what that consists of.

Ultimately all I want to do is extend the line, and I have no issue in running single mode fibre up the driveway into my main plant room but if I do this could I then have my openreach router sat in the plant room at house?
 
The NTE is an active piece of equipment that Openreach supply and where they connect their fibre to. You are not meant to touch anything on the network side of that device. So you could extend the fibre and move the NTE into your house, but then whenever you have a fault call out the engineer will walk away.
 
jurassic86 said:
Yes I get that but could we not extend the fibre by using a patch panel to loop the two fibres together? Instead of splicing? I suspect this is what you was referring to?
Click to expand...

Technically you could and most likely it'd work. But don't do it. Openreach will refuse to deal with that setup if there's any fault. Either pony up the cash to get the NTE installed in your house or run an SM fibre from the customer side of the NTE (installed in the gate house) and connect that to the Cisco device.

The NTE is the Openreach branded bit of kit that their fibre will plug into.
 
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I've just googled it and can see exactly what you mean now. Does the NTE have the option for a fibre extension as the photos only show RJ45.

I know I could get a media converter and throw the fibre off that but would that slow it down?
 
There's a few different NTE's that Openreach use but I can't remember the last time I saw a new install that had RJ45 as the only customer facing option. Generally they have RJ45 and an SFP (or SPF+) port and which media is used will depend on what the service provider (TTB in this case) orders. What they order will depend on what CPE (Customer Premises Equipment, aka, router) is going to be used and other customer requirements.

It isn't a fibre extension, you're not extending the Openreach fibre to your house, please forget the idea of an extension. It's a fibre handoff to the customer.

A media converter would work and I wouldn't expect any slowdowns but personally I hate them. They're just another unmanaged device to fail. I much prefer using SFP modules and running over fibre rather than using media converters. If you want the circuit to be properly supported then use it in the way that it's designed and don't shoe horn complexity into it.

In your boat I'd put the NTE in the gatehouse and run single mode fibre to wherever in the house you want the CPE.
 
For example, here's a picture of an NTE that Openreach installed for me in December, labelled in finest Openreach sharpie too it seems.

f2Cwkj1.png


The 2 ports labelled 'Access' are the customer facing ports so there's an RJ45 copper port and an SPF port (it's only a 1Gbps circuit so no need for SFP+), we're using the SFP port which is using multimode fibre off to our CPE. The yellow fibre is the incoming single mode fibre that the service is delivered on. That orange fibre, the SFP it connects to and the NTE itself are the properly of Openreach.
 
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As this is domestic you could buy yourself a reel of pre-terminated single mode and the correct coupler and then move the NTE, should be fine as long as you don't damage the providers fibre.

Its just some cable and not rocket science, just be sure to get the correct cable and adapters.

If you get an issue on the circuit, take the NTE back to the original location and put back to stock then report the fault.
 
SupraWez said:
As this is domestic you could buy yourself a reel of pre-terminated single mode and the correct coupler and then move the NTE, should be fine as long as you don't damage the providers fibre.

Its just some cable and not rocket science, just be sure to get the correct cable and adapters.

If you get an issue on the circuit, take the NTE back to the original location and put back to stock then report the fault.
Click to expand...
I have a company locally who have the machine which connects fibre and originally what I intended on doing but wasn't aware of the complexity of how it all comes into the premises.

I think so long as it has a fibre output I'll just stick that into the equipment and take that to the house in SMF, that way the equipment side remains untouched incase of a line fault.

My only concern was that the speeds would suffer but I think if I stick to SMF it should be fine on the distance.
 
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