Those green boxes on the corners

That is what I am curious about now, the history. I am not sure why,
probably I am coming down with a touch of asperges syndrome. But the
house that I live in is about 25 years old, whereas that church I would
guess is older. (It's a modern church). From what I have read I cannot
easily have fiber optic because my line goes to the exchange. But I see
green boxes on my way when I walk to the exchange. Some green boxes are
different from others. I looked to see if I could see a number on one,
but it just said "Siemens". Other green boxes have "fiber is coming
here" or something like that. Some of these green boxes must be old I
think, they would predate fiber optics, or the Internet?

I tried guessing local telephone numbers on the dsl checker
web-site. Many give no results because they have been transferred over to
Virgin Media. But some work, and show they are connected to cabinets.

All this is just curiosity. My broadband is about 6Mbs but I am not
bothered about paying more.

 

The FTTC cabinets have lightning symbols on them as they have mains
voltages inside (unlike ordinary phone junction boxes). They can often be
heard making faint whirring noises as they have cooling fans. They tend to
be bigger than regular junction boxes.

Not sure that identifying FTTC boxes will help you though.

Tim

 

What you could do is get your neighbour to go to an isp that allows
connection sharing (AAISP is one) and get a high speed connection and
split the costs.

 

That limit was nothing to do with the wiring - it was the best that
contemporary electronics could manage. On the plus side, you could have
a data connection at that speed to a modem the other end of the country.

A large part of which is achieved by moving the 'distant' modem to your
telephone exchange.

 

There might be legal aspects of that in the rights that BT have in
terms of delivery location. ISTR for instance that you cannot take
your own landline across a road although I know that doesn't apply in
this instance. We had that with a college a few years ago and the only
solution was to link the two halves of the telephone system with a
short hop microwave link - dramtically cheaper (including a
maintenance contract) than letting BT do it by lines and charge for
same!

 

I really should make a habit of looking at who the poster is before
replying

 

Bearing in mind Snoopers' Charter Mk II, do you want logs of your online
activity intermingled with those of a neighbour?

 

Lots of other people have installed roadside boxes - near us we have: -

Very large (1.5mhX2mx.3m) green cabinet with 3 doors, fans and smells of gas. Originally installed by Nynex, now presumably Virgin.

Small unpainted cabinets - either traffic control or originally installed by Cable & Wireless with unknown owners now.

Largish grey cabinets next to cell phone masts - various GSM & 3G operators.

It might allow him to order another line, which would be provisioned from it.

 

Might that give you what I think they call "plausible deniability"?

Rod.

 

I tried Google Earth today and found my one in a different place from
how it looked on the original map.
Bill.

 

Not would - might.
If there is a spare pair on the cable he already has, they would just
use that, and he'd be out an installation charge and year contract for
no gain.

 

I had to deal with a similar issue linking two office buildings in
London a few years ago. When searching for alternatives to what was
there (an utterly dire laser link with something like a 70% uptime), I
was able to establish that if no road needs to be crossed, and any
land that is crossed is done by permission of the landowner, there is
no legal barrier to installing your own physical connection..

 

This one looked about 200 yards away in front of me but is actually
about 400 yards out of sight in the other direction.
I knew that one was there but did not take it to be it.
Bill.

 

This one looked about 200 yards away in front of me but is actually
about 400 yards out of sight in the other direction.
I knew that one was there but did not take it to be it.
Bill.
Now that I notice them I am surprised by how many there are.
If I turn left from 'my one' there are two more about 200 yards away.
If I go straight on towards the town centre there are two on either side
of the street about another 250 yards away.
Bill.

 

I have had much difficulty finding my cab until I came across
something the other day.

Go to www.magsys.co.uk and select Code look-up, then enter your phone
number. When it shows your exchange click on it, then on the hyperlink
in the top right corner of the yellow box - something like All ??
fibre cabinets. A map will pop up with all the cabs shown - hold you
mouse over any one and it will show its number.

Having now found where my cab is I went looking for it and found it
round a corner about 100yds from the indicated point. Well, at least I
found it! The fibre cab is on the opposite side of the road!

 

Not too impressed. Seems very inaccurate regarding actual cabinet
positions.

Tim

 

It doesn't claim any more than "centre of postcode" accuracy.

 

Very useful.

No the locations are rubbish as I know where most of the ones near me are because BT sent me a map back in 2009 when they put them in.

Several are shown in private locations, when AFAIK they are almost always in the street.

 

I can't speak for the ones in private locations in my area, but my cab
is half a mile out. Mind, that could be the nearest house...

Andy

 

Great, it is not the one thought it was. It is much nearer in the next
street and I had been down part of that street last week without
noticing it. I will look tomorrow. I did find another one today that was
camouflaged as it was in front of a hedge.
Does the % figure how many lines are in use from the cabinet. The one
for our post code is 86% the other one next to it is 100%.
Bill.