dpCom offers several options for documenting the network inside a building, such as an MDU (Multiple Dwelling Unit), with varying levels of detail.

The passive equipment object types include subtypes such as Building panel, Staircase panel, Floor panel, and Apartment fiber panel. These subtypes can be used to simply describe the end-points of each fiber connection.

 

Building panel

In the node that terminates the incoming network, a building panel object is created with the appropriate number of stairs, floors, and apartments. Patches are then made from the termination point, for example, in an ODF, switch, or splitter of the incoming network to the contacts of the appropriate apartment.

Contacts in the building panel are presented as follows: BuildingXYZ, Stair1, Floor2, Apartment32, Contact1.

Advantages:

•Creating the structure of the building panel is quick and easy.

•Product specifications can be used as templates for typical building structures. Even if they do not always fit perfectly, smaller edits can be made to the actual object created from the template, for example, removing some apartments.

Disadvantages:

•The indoor network is not fully documented.

•The building panel does not reflect the actual physical panel as it appears in the node.

 

Apartments represented by handover cabinets

In the node that terminates the incoming network, handover cabinets are placed for each apartment. These cabinets have attributes for apartment ID, floor, and so on. Inside these cabinets, a fiber termination unit or a CPE (Customer Premises Equipment) can be placed. Cables placed as Cable in node connect the handover cabinets to their feeding point, typically an ODF.

Advantages:

•The entire indoor network is modeled within the customer node.

•It is possible to create the entire connected indoor network based on a series of CSV imports from an Excel-based source.

•The physical panel that terminates the indoor network is correctly documented.

•The actual cables are part of the documentation.

Disadvantages:

•The actual layout of the indoor network is not represented in detail.

•No lengths of the cables can be calculated, though they can be added manually.

 

Use the building object and drawings

 

The building object represents a building. It is typically shown on the map as a polygon but can also be represented as a symbol. Nodes, such as customer nodes or indoor nodes, can be set as children of the building object. In its basic form, it acts as an additional level in the description of customer nodes on the map.

When combined with Drawings, the building object becomes the parent of the complete indoor network. In the Drawing, it is shown as a side-view of a building with floors and apartments.

A special generator, Generate building schema, is used to create the basic infrastructure of the building, including floors, apartments, and indoor routes. This creation is based on the generator's parameters, such as the number of floors, number of apartments per floor, presence of a floor node, and so on. After running the generator, you can easily remove an apartment from the top floor or make other adjustments.

For larger MDUs, there may be cabinets on some or all floors containing splice boxes or splitters for connecting the drop cables. This is supported by the generator but can also be added later.

Another option in the building generator is to represent the apartments on each floor with just one node and then use handover cabinets, as described above, to model the individual apartments.

After running the generator, additional nodes can be manually created and placed. These might represent commercial tenants such as shops or restaurants on the ground floor, or rooms such as laundry facilities.

The same auto-generation tools used to create an FTTH network for an area of SDU customer nodes can be used in the building. This means that cables, with or without ducts, can be placed from the feeding node to each apartment, equipment can be placed in apartments and connected to the cables, and the cables can be connected to the feeding panel.

Advantages:

•The entire indoor network is modeled in considerable detail.

•The building generator makes it relatively easy to create the network.

•This detailed model is useful for cost calculations since most actual objects are part of the model.

Disadvantages:

•It is more time-consuming than less detailed alternatives.

•It requires the Drawings module.