Telecom News Issue 3 - Flipbook - Page 14
Magdalene
New Magdalene
Contracts
Broadband Cabinets
Increased Line Capacity
Magdalene has been awarded a new
contract to upgrade Openreach’s
Broadband Cabinets across the country.
Magdalene has secured a contract with
Openreach to deliver increased line
capacity across the East of England.
The contract involves adding new 10Gbit fibre
connections to the cabinets, upgrading them to
handle the increased demand from the customers
connected to them. This will involve installing
new, higher speed optical line cards within the
exchanges and cabinets simultaneously.
The contract is to provide a turnkey solution,
where Magdalene will undertake any necessary
civils work as well as the installation of new tie
cables, allowing more customers to access
Openreach’s Superfast Broadband.
A team of two operatives will work closely with the
Openreach Control Centre to take the cabinets
offline while they upgrade the electronics in the
telephone exchange and in the cabinet. The work
in the telephone line involves identifying the correct
equipment racks and circuits to be upgraded, then
disconnecting and changing the cards.
The work inside the cabinet is similar; however, will
require a tent to be erected to keep the valuable
electronic equipment dry. Once complete, tests
are completed alongside the Openreach Control
Centre to ensure the installation is working
correctly and alarm free.
The cabinets will also require upgraded ventilation
as more equipment is installed, and Magdalene
teams will be tasked with adding new heat
exchanger units to the cabinets. The whole
process takes around three to four hours.
All work is scheduled to take place throughout the
night to keep any potential disruption of service to
internet traffic to a minimum.
Andy Hudson, Magdalene Sales Director, said:
“This is an essential contract to ensuring Openreach
can meet and exceed the growing demands of their
customers, for now and for the future. Magdalene
has an excellent history with Openreach and this
further cements our relationship with them; which is
a reflection of the hard work of the delivery team.”
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Magdalene Sales Director, Andy Hudson said:
“Magdalene carefully assessed the operational
costs of previous deliveries and their successes
in avoiding expensive civils engineering to offer a
compelling proposition to Openreach.”
The contract will see Magdalene teams upgrade
around 620 Green Fibre Cabinets over a six-month
period.
A team of two operatives visit each cabinet to
install the new cables and terminate them. If they
encounter blocked or congested ducts, they will
call in a civils team to clear the blockage or install
a new duct.
The work typically takes two days to complete
and causes no interruption of service to existing
Openreach customers throughout the process.
As it stands, operatives are about 10% of the way
through the programme and it is due to reach
completion in March 2020.
