Can I get a critique of this Circet fibre install

[SR71BB]

I finally got the management agent of the flat I live in to agree to a wayleave for a fibre install. I'll be ordering BT Full Fibre once it's available, hopefully in a few days.

I live in an apartment block that has two flats that share a secure stairwell. All utilities for the two flats are in the secure area. No other flats run of the utilities that connect there. Circet came yesterday and installed an Openreach fibre joint/breakout box and two distribution points along with fibre cable in the shared stairwell and utility cupboard. Nothing has yet been installed inside either of the flats.

I'm concerned about the quality of the install, especially the number of 90 degree bends.

The incoming fibre joint box has been located on the ground floor in the utility cupboard. There are no flats on the ground floor. A single fibre cable, identical to the one in the photos, runs to a distribution box placed above my neighbours door on the 1st floor. They are the only flat on the first floor. That cable run has the same amount of 90 degree bends as mine does.

A fibre cable comes out of the neighbours box and runs to a distribution box above my door on the second floor. I am the only flat on the second floor. There is only one flat per floor.

My first question is, shouldn't we have had two cable runs from the joint box, one to each individual flat, rather than sharing a cable?

That's what I can see in the May 2022 update of the new fibre install handbook, when there is only two flats running of a single joint/breakout box. 

Secondly, are all the 90 degree bends in the cable really needed? Some look rather sharp. Couldn't the cable have went straight up the wall? It would've been behind the hand rail, out of the reach of anyone.

The red line in the picture traces out the route the cable takes. The green line is what I think would be a better, straighter route. Why would they chose to follow the skirting board and door frame?

I thought they may have did a cable pull through the old phone line ducting from the master socket to the joint box, replacing the master socket with an ONT. The master socket in each flat sits directly above the joint box, so would've been a shorter and straighter cable run. 

They have also attached the cable to the skirting boards and my wooden door frame. We have cleaners that come in and clean very quickly without care, always banger the vacuum cleaner into the skirting boards, and could damage the cable. I also plan to repaint my door and frame in the Spring, but now won't be able to sand the frame and properly paint it due to the fibre cable being attached to it with glue and tacks.

Does this look like a good install? Do you see any issues with it?

Thanks.

[imjolly]

just from your photos all the bends are rounded/curved whereas your lines have right angled turns which are no good to fibre

[SR71BB]

Of course my MS Paint drawn lines would be straight. They are just an indication of what I think would be a better routing. It's hard to draw curves in paint.

The Openreach install handbook says to avoid 90 degree bends as much as possible. There's a few that have quite a tight radius, especially around the door lintel area. The cable looks stressed there. I'm asking if having this many bends, instead of straighter runs which were possible, will cause problems.  They could've avoided five 90 degree bends if they went straight up behind the handrail instead of routing the cable around the skirting board and up the door frame. Is there a reason a straight run up to the ceiling would be avoided in an install like this?

Also, is attaching it to a door frame with tacks and glue typical install practice for invisilight?

If there are only two flats, why did each flat not get a separate fibre run from the joint box like the install handbook suggests? Is there a reason they both share the same cable?

[gg30340]

There will be a reason it was done that. The easy route is not always the best. As longas the radius of the bends are within spec there will not be a problem.

It is difficult to see correctly but your straight line route would appear to make the cable more vulnerable to being damaged by people passing by if they or something being carried bumped into it.

[SR71BB]

It's hard to see from the pictures but the stairwell is very large area (tall and wide) and a cable ran up the wall would not have been accessible to anyone on the staircase. Moving furniture on the staircase does not enter that area. That area would've only been accessible by leaning over the rail with a stick.

[gg30340]

Given what you have said it may be that special equipment would have been needed to work at height in a stairwell.

What ever is said on the forum is only speculation as only the installer can say why he routed it the way he did. 

[iniltous]

A bend in an optical fibre introduces a loss , even in a straight cable run there are losses  , but a bend , especially a ‘tight’ bend causes more loss ( more light can escape ) if the cumulative loss becomes too much then the power level at the ONT would be insufficient for the equipment to sync to the headend , so ‘bends’ in the fibre run although undesirable and avoided if possible, are not necessarily going to stop the service working,  optical systems are not like ADSL/VDSL that are rate adapting, where the greater the loss the lower the sync rate , it’s if the power level is OK ( even if it could be better without the bends in the cable ) it’s going to work …obviously if those bends have introduced too much loss then it won’t work , so unless whoever installed the cable has tested it for loss ( and that’s not very likely ) you won’t  know  be until it’s tried  if it’s OK  or not , but if you were in a new build , this cable  would be installed at first fix , so anything like this would be hidden from view , and in that case you  would be in a state of ‘blissful ignorance’ .

I would  say no reason to worry ( yet )  , if by chance the losses are too great then these  bends would need to be addressed.

[SR71BB]

They did only come with a little step ladder, just tall enough to reach the top of the door. They'd have needed a more sophisticated step ladder and platform to safely reach the top of the ceiling from the stairwell (Other than dangerously leaning over the rail). I never considered it being a lack of equipment issue. Thanks

No testing was done on the cable. Openreach haven't pulled the main cable into the building yet. That will likely be done after I order the upgrade to the FTTP package.

Good thing is the building now has a wayleave, so if there are any issues with loss of signal from the bendy install, BT and Openreach don't have to go back to the management agent for permission to enter and fix it.

Still would've liked two separate cables though.

[iniltous]

TBH , I don’t understand the way you describe what they have done , although each ‘leg’ of a splitter is optically identical, one fibre cannot service two ONT’s , unless another splitter is used and that isn’t how Openreach build their  distribution network ( they don’t  have a second splitter downstream of the splitter node ) so you would expect an individual fibre for each flat from the point where the splitter is located ,  even if some of those individual fibres are within the same fibre cable , unfortunately the images you posted of the COF ( cable optical fibre ) don’t show the markings that would confirm the cable size .

[36ULW]

The Metal Tacs are absolutely a necessity as they’re there for Fire Regs to save peoples lives in the even of a fire.

If they weren’t there I’d report it immediately to the MA to get Openreach and or their Contractor out to put them in immediately and if they didn’t the Cable should be removed.

Ref to the Build I’d say that’s absolutely spot on.