Fusion News Zone is now well underway, and each month we consider what our potential clients and existing customers actually want to read and can be of benefit. Having researched Ethernet First Mile online, trying to find out physical implications and see pictures of existing setups, there was very little information available anywhere – even after hours of “googling”. So for this month’s contribution to News Zone I wanted to discuss the physical aspect of having an EFM service installed so you can see a setup.

EFM is delivered over copper so it’s relatively quick and easy to install (in comparison to fibre Ethernet at least). We’ll arrange for an Openreach engineer to visit your office and install the copper, the same copper as standard telephone lines. The engineer will need access to what Openreach refer to as the “DP” (Distribution Point). There’s normally a DP on each floor of a building and tends to be locked away in a communications room or a service cupboard where the buildings utility risers are located.

This is what an Openreach Distribution Point (DP) looks like:

Copper will run from the DP to your termination point. The termination point is normally a rack or communications room, but ultimately its wherever you want the equipment to be kept. We’ve had our service installed within a rack. We have dedicated racks full of connectivity as we need to test hardware, trial provision processes and ensure the services we sell and recommend actually work and are thoroughly tested in a lab environment.

Below you can see Openreach NTE5 boxes (the same as phone lines) mounted on the inside of our rack. Depending on your offices distance from the exchange and copper quality you may have just 2 boxes, or you may have 8. We went for a 10Mb service(the fastest) and needed 5 copper pairs to deliver the guaranteed performance.

Each Openreach NTE5 has a colour-coded cable connected to it which runs to the Ethernet First Mile Network Termination Equipment (EFM NTE), otherwise known as the “Hatteras box”. The Hatteras box can be either wall or rack mounted dependant on your personal circumstances. We opted for rack mounted, and here’s a picture. You’ll notice the 8 LED’s, which light up to confirm each pair is working.

The EFM service is then presented in the form of an RJ45 Ethernet port. Ethernet is the most flexible and convenient handoff method and is compatible with any type of device that can support static IP addressing and a default gateway (we can also deliver layer 2 services – give us a call if you want more details).

So, you’re now fully aware of the physical implications and how we deliver our EFM services!

If you have any questions specific to your installation requirements then don't hesitate to get in touch.

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