Comcast has responded to Verizon’s FiOS overlay in my part of Purcellville 1 year later with a major plant rebuild. First time they have done a rebuild involving marking the entire subdivision and major digging since Loudoun Cablevision (90’s!). Looking like new doghouses are replacing the old small poorly vented ones. Additionally, new coax and new fiber seems to be on the agenda. Not sure if this is to prep for FDX or just mid-split, or if this a full plant rebuild or just partial modernization. Anyways, nice to see them finally doing some major work in the last thousands of feet after so long. Old infrastructure is all Jerrold General Instrument amp housings and taps with a few random Motorola replacements sprinkled in.
The doghouse by the pole mounted node is new - there was no doghouse or pedestal there before.
I was super confused seeing that concrete hand hole sitting a few feet from Verizon’s FDH hub, thinking Verizon is redundantly installing more FiOS at first. Went for a walk, and confirmed it’s Comcast and that Comcast is using the same Oldcastle polymer concrete hand holes for this project.
One notable difference between Comcast OSP standards and Verizon OSP standards - Verizon ran three conduits between ANY hand hole, even if only 1 conduit is required. Comcast seems to run 1 large conduit.
IMO, Verizon’s approach is more future proof.
I’ll be following this build and seeing what happens and posting it here.
Will I switch back to Comcast from FiOS? Probably not. Might pick up FDX as a backup link on a lower speed tier if there is a good promo.
