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Outside of my house - where does my signal go?


Dillinger

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What the hell does this have to do with firearms...LMAO

 

Great post as always Dillinger,very informative with your on point sense of humor thrown in,love it

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I'm doomed.

Internet first enters my place inside this box (along with other stuff). How am I supposed to hook a modem up there?   :(

 

unnamed.jpg

 

Interesting.  I have seen these applications before, but they are usually custom builds.  Is there a wired pass through from that location to the inset wall with the glass/plexiglass cover below it?  Empty conduits, pull strings or maybe just matching colored cables with or without ends on them?

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Fantastic post Dillinger, great read and very informative, I'm really looking forward to the next parts as well! I've pinned this thread also :)

 

Thanks Fraser - I am gathering some pictures and working on the street view next, along with a primer for those interested in FTTC/FTTH applications.

 

What the hell does this have to do with firearms...LMAO

 

Great post as always Dillinger,very informative with your on point sense of humor thrown in,love it

 

LOL - Easy big guy, I got you.  Working on a thread concept for you, just need to figure out a couple of angles to keep it entertaining. :)

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That is how and what I see choppy games besides lower speeds. I just checked my modems Event Log and yes a lot of error messages. I sent them proof. Thank you for your input now I have words to back up what I see.

No  problem, hopefully mine will be fixed this week. they sent the ticket to maintainance, so that they can split the headend because it's too crowded. I hope it fixes the choppy gameplay!

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Thanks lukasz :)  It's still wide open!  In our 'compensation culture', I'm surprised nobody has accidently-on-purpose tripped over and seriously injured themselves, yet.

 

"This cabinet has been overhauled.

 

Disciplinary action will be taken against persons proven to have used non-standard working practices or to have left the cabinet in an untidy state."

 

Oh, the irony.  :rolleyes:

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Sure its funy though i would the cabinet would be owned by virgin media but is seems like virgin is using it but the cabinet its owned by different company.

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Interesting.  I have seen these applications before, but they are usually custom builds.  Is there a wired pass through from that location to the inset wall with the glass/plexiglass cover below it?  Empty conduits, pull strings or maybe just matching colored cables with or without ends on them?

 

The plexiglass board is packed with all the apartment's fuses. (High voltage cables)

The box above contains only low voltage cables  and just one pair of high voltage (220V/50Hz) for power supply.

Messing with the lower panel in any way is an absolute no-no, unless you need an afro-hair look.

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Sure its funy though i would the cabinet would be owned by virgin media but is seems like virgin is using it but the cabinet its owned by different company.

ntl was bought out by virgin Lukasz

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The plexiglass board is packed with all the apartment's fuses. (High voltage cables)

The box above contains only low voltage cables  and just one pair of high voltage (220V/50Hz) for power supply.

Messing with the lower panel in any way is an absolute no-no, unless you need an afro-hair look.

 

Okay, so initially my head starting spinning with "how would I address this on a job", but then realized you might like something nicer. :)

 

The boxes that I have seen, like this, have all had one of two distinct features that would address your problem, but I don't know if yours included them.   :huh:  :unsure:

 

The first would be a set of patch cables going from that location to a cupboard, shelf, or "other" area where some gear like a router/modem and/or phone/communication device would sit.  I assumed first off, in looking at the image, that the plexi-glass would be that slot, but no joy there.  I would expect it's WAY too much to ask if there were another slot like that in the rooms on the same wall, behind the twin doorways?  I suspect there is nothing there, but a guy can hope.

 

The next thing I would have expected to see was a "customer only" access point where a router or modem could be placed inside and away from the other gear that is in that cabinet.  I suspect, as you have already listed what is inside, that yours doesn't include any area like that, which leaves me a bit puzzled as to WTF they were planning on doing with that application.   :ph34r:

 

So what can be done?

 

A small pine shelf, with a couple of brackets from a home improvement warehouse like Home Depot, could be mounted on that header to the left of the box to hold the gear and it would be a short jumper from there to the cabinet.

 

But what about power?

 

I'd just throw the main breaker to OFF, fish an additional wire up through the wall and poke it out between the header and the existing box.  Get yourself an electrical outlet box and mount it up there (flush mount with trim and a "U" channel for the wire to the wall optional) good and solid.  Strip the wire and include it with the wiring on a low need electrical breaker in the plexi-glass breaker area (something like 120VAC to the outside outlet or lights), make sure both ends are terminated correctly and turn the main breaker back to ON.

 

Grab any low motor rated plug in device, plug into the new outlet and confirm AC (use a VOM if you have one, but I never assume people have the same tools I do).  Wire up what I hope is your wireless router to the existing box and Bob's your uncle....

 

Now if you want to hard line from the new shelf to the router.....

 

It's all about following natural lines and using vacant space (like any interior wall).  I can talk you through it, but I would rather not as there are PLENTY of things that can go wrong when drilling, and working, with interior walls.  

 

I once drilled what I thought was a perfectly placed hole from an upstairs bedroom to the exterior of the house for a really slick, "hidden" extra outlet.  And I then promptly drilled through an interior wall, through a seemingly odd space with no insulation, through another wall which I expected to be thicker, and then through the neck and throat region of a religious looking figure on a cross in a painting on the stairs that lead from the ground floor.

 

Yeah, I have had THOSE days too.... :huh:  :(

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Is is ok to post those pictures on virgin tweeter or that would be a some sort of breaking the law?

 

Go ahead.  If they care about getting sued, they should be giving you (3) months free service for letting them know about this serious deficiency in the safety and care of your plant

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Street View:

 

We have covered some basics of home wiring, and BTW Thanks to everyone for including pictures from around their homes to add to the thread.  That really helped this thread take off, so thank you all for participating!

 

What happens when the signal leaves that mess of wiring on your building?  What happens one step upstream? What happens when you look at the plant that was built on your street, and maintained by others? 

 

I am going to specifically address Fiber in this section, so the images I show you are going to represent what Fiber Optics look like in the wild, just like the stuff on your street.  Caveat*  If the transfer medium were coaxial cable, or phone lines, or power lines, they all look and get worked on about the same way, so while this will give you the basics, if you have specific questions, just ask and I will do my best. J

 

First, it depends on if you live in an OVERHEAD, or an UNDERGROUND connection.  Where the wires reside (on a pole = Overhead | In a trench, in conduit, with pedestals in your yard = Underground).

 

Overhead:

Fiber_Loop_OH.jpg

 

Messy_Fiber.jpg

 

install_aerial_fiber_optic_cablesfs4.jpg

 

Underground:

Underground_Fiber_loop.jpg

 

Going_in.jpg

 

Trenching.jpg

 

IDEAA_Pedestal.jpg

 

 

Now fiber is the “wave of the future”, and it has been since the 80’s when it was so rare to actually get a contract to put it in place, the only place I know doing it was New York State.  Stuff used to be like gold, and cost about as much.

 

Fiber used to be terribly expensive to buy, install and maintain.  All of which required special tools and special training for the employees to have to be certified on, just like every other trade.  And because of the investment to have it in your plant, you also needed all the electronics to make it run, which is hundreds of thousands of dollars in gear and places to store it. 

 

In the 90’s when I was active, there were only about a dozen of us at any given shop or office that were certified to work with fiber.  The shit is fragile, it’s dangerous as shit if you aren’t careful, and doing simple tasks like splicing require a level of record keeping on par with a good CPA. 

 

Why didn’t Google Fiber spread the world over?  It’s a long, drawn out discussion, but the short answer is this:  No matter how much money you think you have, you don’t have enough to run your own fiber lines.  Google found this out the hard way and I could have told them that for a lot less money if they would have just asked. :D

 

More to follow....

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Now before I go any further with what happens on the street, does anyone have any questions about "Fiber" itself?  Or like, would a "what is fiber" primer be helpful?  Or does everyone understand the basics of what it is?

 

Thanks for reading,

 

JD

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Now before I go any further with what happens on the street, does anyone have any questions about "Fiber" itself?  Or like, would a "what is fiber" primer be helpful?  Or does everyone understand the basics of what it is?

 

Thanks for reading,

 

JD

 

A 'what is fibre' would be good :) Means no confusion further down the line.

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Yesterday i spoted BT technician working on a cabinet in my are but this may just be a phone cabinet. See picture below.

http://imgur.com/fYzZg1l

 

You are correct.  That is a phone/twisted pair punchdown or termination cabinet.  Large, multi-pair lines run parallel with most streets in underground sections.  They come up at these cabinet locations and provide the connection with the lines that are run from the homes out into the same patch locations.  If/When there is a problem with your line, the technician can quickly identify if the problem is on the street, or just in your line, by comparing signal levels here and at your house/residence.

 

This is also a really easy place to shut off or turn on service when customers move or change homes. :)

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When last we left our story telling, we were just getting ankle deep into the “world of connections” outside the home.  I think we have a pretty good understanding of the house wiring, so let’s move a little further UPSTREAM towards the source and discuss…..

 

Fiber vs. Coaxial Cable vs. DSL/Twisted pair/Phone offerings:

 

This is Fiber:

ERvkWIf.jpg

CplMuO6.gif (ßRibbon Fiber, really cool, but it was kind of a fad)

 

This is a Coaxial Cable (Cable Company):

eLmJBQJ.jpg

 

This is a DSL (Digital Subscriber Line) style cable:

fvV9oCD.jpg

I3V09Qc.jpg

 

Here is what they look like at your house:

SMQ5sY1.jpg

 

Based purely on how much data can be transmitted (both up and down stream), effectively, and with the least amount of errors/damage/service interruptions over a pay-back cycle (usually from 5-10 years), here is their ranking.

1.       Fiber

2.       Coax

3.       Twisted Pair/DSL

 

This does tie directly to their overall reliability, in that fiber is more reliable and less susceptible to interruptions that effect the other two, but when fiber is damaged, it takes a much longer time to repair, so it’s not really a 1:1 scenario.

 

In terms of operational costs, which have a multitude of variables for EXISTING services, here is their ranking.

 

1.       Twisted Pair/DSL

2.       Coax

3.       …*

4.       …*

5.       Fiber

*There are other mediums, like satellite to the house or short wave to the house, but I am not even a novice in these fields and I would rather NOT get into a technical discussion about it unless it’s really needed because I am not the definitive source.

 

There is a lot of interest in “fiber” and what makes it “the thing” right now, so I am going to concentrate on that for this post, however if you have other questions, please feel free to ask and I will do my best.

 

fi·ber op·tics (noun)

                The use of thin flexible fibers of glass, or other transparent solids to transmit light signals in digital form, chiefly for telecommunications or for internal examination of the body.

 

A street level fiber “line” is usually spec’d in fiber count of how many lines you want to give a distribution location (called a “node”).  All the work I ever did was based around a 6-fiber feed to each node location, or a multiple variable of that (12, 18, 24, etc).  So a 144-count fiber would have enough individual single fibers to drop (6) of them off at exactly (24) Node locations.

Why do you need six?  Can’t you transmit tons of data in each of the individual lines?  Yes, yes you can.  Let’s examine that for a minute.

 

A single count fiber has the ability to transmit: 1) Tons and tons of data both UP and DOWN steam, per second, and 2) can transmit that data in digital (which is the native code, right).

 

Coax and Twisted pair were DESIGNED to carry ANALOG signals and were expanded with functionality to be able to carry data in digital form.

 

Now fiber benefits in the aspect that the driving force is “light” (*Note, I don’t know how it works on the creation end, I only know how to make it get from over there to you, but it’s technical, expensive and has tons of Patents J).  For the record: the Speed of Light in a vacuum is 299,792,458 meters per second, or 186,282 miles per second. In any other medium, though, it’s generally a lot slower. In normal optical fibers (silica glass), light travels a full 31% slower, but it’s still really, really fast for data transmission.

 

Now in looking where I can go here, it gets technical fast, so I don’t know if that is needed for this thread, or if you guys have questions on “what is fiber” before I continue, so I am going to <PAUSE> here and wait for feedback.

 

Cheers,

 

JD

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Apologies all, moved this out in the open for all to see.  I posted it in the wrong thread, but thankfully this time I didn't need to have Crossy move it for me.  :)

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Funny enough we are using same coax cable to connect multiple antennas to RX and TX for our video links so i have a good practice of making those( striping putting all the stuff and the crimping ) 

 

Once i had a technician at my house and just by watching how he was doing it i sad to him just let me do it and the cable that goes to my router its actually made by me hehehe.

 

Now love the stuff about the fiber.. would love to know in more detail the infrastracure of fiber network you hasd mention what the node is i woudl love to hear like how its build setp by step form wherever its starting to when is at your house. like where the real fiber starts and where stops and what happens after that.

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