Another inquisitive elderly gentleman 's FTTC question

[#1]

How much does the signal attenuate over, say 1,2,4 kms of fibre, and then what is the rate from cabinet to home? The indicative checker suggested speed ~12.5-14.5 mbps for my address

[#2]

Hi Lucerne,
I've raised this with our resident FTTC expert and will let you know what their response is when they get back to me.
Adam.

[#3]

Hi,
The fibre run can be very long before there's any deterioration, more than 5km certainly and probably more than 10km. Therefore for the vast majority of cabs the fibre run is kind of irrelevant as it will won't lose any signal along the way.
From cab to home then the speed drops off quite quickly the longer the copper run, I've not got a lot of data yet, and it won't help that the cabs are very underutlised at the moment which will artificially increase the speeds compared to what they will be when the cabs get busy. The shorter the copper run the better and if it's under a few hundred metres it seems to be best.

[#4]

I would say the loses in the fibre cable is irrelevant as the street cabs are powered and contain the MSAN equipment.

[#5]

I'm guessing that the speed drop in the copper run will be proportionally greater for the length than for completely non fibre runs, though in innocence or ignorance cannot think why.

[#6]

Thanks for picking this up Dave,
As an aside, in my student days I paid a visit to the Schott glass factory (who make fibre cables amongst other things) they have a demonstration glass rod which is about 2 inches in diameter and about 5 metres long and made from the same quality glass used for the fibre cables. You could literally look down one end of the rod and see through the other end with no refraction or distortion, very impressive indeed and gives you an idea of how effective the technology can be.
Adam

[#7]

When the signal arrives at the cabinet, the optical signal is re-digitized so there is no signal loss to that point.  From the point it goes onto copper the speed starts to drop.    If you can find out where the large road-side cabinet is on the way to your property you need to measure the distance from there to your house (in feet!).  If you follow this link  http://www.internode.on.net/residential/broadband/adsl/extreme/performance/ ; then the green graph that will give you a very good idea of the speed you should hope to get.  Remember to measure the distance by following the road where the cable goes and not just as the crow flies.  Good luck!  You can double check this by measuring the distance to the exchange and comparing that to your current speed.  I've always found it to be very accurate.

[#8]

I am impressed on how you guys jumped on this =p good for you 😃

[#9]

Thanks magnette