Space Management
Part I
Customer solutions, space allocation and funder
priority
Key Points
• Our cabinets and other options are sufficient to cover most
conceivable scenarios
• Overly prescriptive space management rules will create goldplated, complex processes and drive costs
• Each of our customers has equipment and needs that are
specific to them
• The business case is challenging – the party funding the
cabinet should have confidence that they can utilise the space
required for their business case
2
Chorus’ cabinets
 Chorus’ Distribution Cabinets include:
•
•
•
•
•
Single bay Whisper cabinets
Double bay Whisper cabinets
USC cabinets
Other legacy cabinets
Radio huts, converted water tanks, etc.
 This presentation focuses primarily on the Whisper
cabinets, which we think are of most interest to our
customers.
 The Sub-loop STD will apply to all types of Distribution
Cabinets.
3
Distribution Cabinets and the FTTN Programme
 Distribution Cabinet areas for the FTTN Programme are
designed:
(a) to ensure sub-loops have a maximum line loss of 60dB
measured at 1024 Mhz. Practically, this means sub-loops
have a maximum length of 2.4 kms in urban-type areas;
(b) this is checked against a target maximum of 330 workers per
area and an absolute maximum of 384 workers (so as not to
exceed the capacity of the Telecom Wholesale Alcatel-Lucent
7302 ISAM);
(c) in practice, engineering for (a) generally ensures (b), but in a
few cases the design will need to be modified to reflect (b);
(d) the cabinets are designed to minimise physical impact on the
environment.
4
Single bay Whisper cabinet
 The single bay whisper cabinet has 27 Rack Units in the
equipment bay:
• a single bay is designed to be used when the copper feeder is
available and POTS services are provided using equipment in
the Exchange;
• half a Rack Unit is required at the bottom for the fibre tray;
• the cabinet configuration requires 2 Rack Units of free space
at the top of the bay for cooling;
• space may also be required between equipment for cooling.
5
Double bay Whisper cabinet
 The double bay whisper cabinet has 27 Rack Units in each
of its two equipment bays:
• a double bay is designed to be used when the copper feeder is
no longer available in sufficient quantities to support all End
Users with voice from the Exchange. Double bays cannot be
used without voice equipment as the termination area is not
able to support SLES terminations.
• the double bay has the same heat management capability as
a single bay cabinet;
• half a Rack Unit is required at the bottom for the fibre tray;
• the cabinet configuration requires 2 Rack Units of space at the
top of each bay for cooling;
• space may also be required between equipment for cooling.
6
Covec and cost-benefit analysis
 Covec suggests that the Commission should conduct a costbenefit analysis of additional cabinet space and the competitive
benefits it facilitates.
 Clearly a build obligation that transfers our customers’ business
risk onto us will encourage high risk/high return behaviour which
will not be to the long term benefit of end users.
 If the Commission wished to take Covec’s advice and perform a
cost-benefit analysis of the long-term interests of end-users it
would need to do so properly (and it would need to make
predictions of future competitive market structures –which Covec
disapproves of).
 We suggest that working through facts and realistic assumptions
(rather than a cost-benefit analysis) will bring us to a better
conclusion, more quickly and with less speculation on future
competitive structures.
7
Realistic assumptions
 Some realistic assumptions on co-location in our cabinets are:
•
•
Telecom Wholesale will be present (at least initially) in all our cabinets;
our customers will install equipment where they have either:
(a) a significant market share or an intention to gain a significant market share; or
(b) one or more high value customers off that cabinet;
•
•
•
•
•
in scenario (a), our customer will employ a (potentially localised) mass
marketing strategy and use DSLAM equipment that supports a significant
number of workers; and
in most cases there will only be 2 mass market providers with installed
equipment;
in the exceptions, our customers can build (or contract us to build) additional
capacity as easily as we can;
in scenario (b), our customer will employ smaller equipment to offer higher
value, specialised services;
in scenario (b) the end users are likely to have contracted with the service
provider for an extended period or on special terms that make a wider range of
co-location options, such as a pedestal, box on a pole, etc, feasible.
8
Customer solutions and funder priority
• The Whisper cabinets have enough space for more than one
set of equipment, but there will always be exceptional
circumstances, specialised business cases that require
additional space, and the existence of non-Whisper cabinets
• Chorus is in the business of providing co-location space and
we’ll work with our customers to develop solutions for their
space needs
• The funder priority rule agreed by the TCF was designed to
provide some confidence to those investing in cabinets that
they would get the benefit of solutions created for them
9