[Davisgig] Meeting with Communications Resources

Paul pbiddle at omsoft.com
Mon Apr 20 13:23:58 PDT 2015


Apartment complexes and other MDU (multidwelling unit) are tricky. There 
are many different common wiring configurations among MDU, some of which 
are very problematic. There is a high turnover rate of residents with 
new students every year, making customer saturation highly variable. 
Management at properties can change fairly regularly as well making long 
term contracts difficult.

The ideal wiring configuration is a single MPOE in central lockable 
wiring closet where all units on the property have a direct wire run. 
This usually provides a dry and secure location for the DSL equipment 
with easy access to electrical power. This configuration requires only 
one fiber run and also reduces the amount of required expensive DSL 
equipment (potentially tens of thousands of dollars per apartment 
complex). Unfortunately this is the least common wiring configuration 
from what I have seen in Davis.

The most common configuration is multiple MPOE in small wiring cabinets 
located on the side of each distinct building on the property. These 
cabinets usually service anywhere from 8 to 16 units each. These 
cabinets are too small to add any equipment to and have no electrical. A 
new weatherproof and lockable cabinet would need to be installed nearby 
with a fiber drop and electrical. This also increases the amount of DSL 
equipment needed per property since you need at least one DSLAM per 
building even if there is only one customer using it.

Even in the multiple MPOE configuration there are different kinds of 
internal wiring. The ideal situation is a direct run from each unit 
which usually provides 2 to 4 dedicated wire pairs per unit. The more 
common situation is one or two 8-pair cables that run behind every 
outlet through every apartment in the building. This wiring method is 
problematic for multiple reasons. A wire pair may be severed or 
disrupted behind any outlet in any apartment and will be difficult if 
not impossible to resolve without having access to every apartment in 
which the wire runs. It also increases the total length of the copper 
run which will decrease the quality of the DSL signal. In this scenario 
it is common for multiple pairs to be simply unusable, and some 
apartments to be unserviceable without a new wire run. Some apartment 
managers are simply unwilling to address phone wiring issues.

MDU may be a good market but they come with a whole new list of 
considerations that may be more applicable to the service provider than 
to the infrastructure provider.



On 4/15/2015 3:51 PM, Steve McMahon wrote:
> I seem to recall from the old Telecommunications Commission days that 
> UCD has a survey (or list) of apartment buildings with very large 
> numbers of students.
>
> It occurs to me that these apartment complexes might be great 
> opportunities for early deployment. They're going to have a very high 
> connection density, making for rapid payback.
>
> I believe that in South Korea, a common mechanism for apartment 
> buildings is to take fiber to the apartment buildings then use a very 
> high-speed, short-distance version of DSL to use twisted pair to 
> apartment buildings. I wonder if that's feasible here. I'd love to 
> find a way to make big apartment complexes early supporters of this 
> project.




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