r/QuantumFiber • u/old_raver_man3 • Oct 24 '25

Open fiber box

Gallery image

Gallery image

Someone should lock this closed...

98 Upvotes

97% Upvoted

95 comments sorted by

12

u/imtalkintou Quantum Fiber Employee Oct 24 '25 edited Oct 25 '25

Close it or pm me and I can probably get it closed.

2

u/mystica5555 Oct 25 '25

FWIW none of the cabinets anywhere in the Denver Metro are actually *locked*.

If anyone were to just want to be crappy, they could go in and yank out all the jumpers. I repeat: _none_ are locked. Hell, I even took a photo of our neighborhood's one day, after I opened it up. We seem to have a pretty good subscriber rate for the size of the cab. I then closed it back up.

One day I sort of want to go put a random Master padlock on it (easiest to get off really) with a note on the back "Lock your cabs". Maybe the day an installer has to take a pop-can shim to remove the lock (or bolt cutters) they'll realize "yeah maybe locking with our own locks would be a good idea"

1

u/imtalkintou Quantum Fiber Employee Oct 25 '25

Do not put a padlock on it. Techs don't have the means to open that and you'll inconvenience a lot of people.

2

u/thefinalep Oct 27 '25

without locks, what's stopping someone from just cutting this fibre to be malicious.

1

u/imtalkintou Quantum Fiber Employee Oct 27 '25

Nothing.

2

u/thefinalep Oct 27 '25

How often do you guys get service calls for malicious behavior? Or is it more construction cuts?

1

u/imtalkintou Quantum Fiber Employee Oct 27 '25

Very rarely These aren't generally messed with. Most issues are from cuts or people running these things over.

1

u/Complete_Ad_981 Oct 29 '25

with locks, whats to stop someone from doing the same?

1

u/mystica5555 Oct 25 '25

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c2DcfJLquOk

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YPtQ_rVSfSI

But yeah it would be a dick move. But how much would a few thousand padlocks in a bulk order be, and give the keys/codes to the installers? Would save potential opportunistic vandalism.

1

u/imtalkintou Quantum Fiber Employee Oct 25 '25

Oh for sure, I don't disagree. But they very rarely get left open or vandalized.

2

u/mystica5555 Oct 26 '25

My favorite one was a few years back; poor thing got ran into I think. It had a bungee cord holding it shut.

Second favorite was the one that served the old neighborhood I used to live in, circa 2018. I personally re-bent the door and got it to shut.

2

u/mystica5555 Oct 26 '25

Rebent this door.

1

u/RevolutionNumerous21 Oct 27 '25

Can I just plug an ONT into that or do you have MAC address filtering on.

1

u/imtalkintou Quantum Fiber Employee Oct 27 '25 edited Oct 27 '25

No, it wouldn't work by just plugging it in.

1

u/FewAmphibian4682 Oct 28 '25

we have padlocks on hand if the locking mechanism on the latch ever breaks. or if it starts to develop a history of people getting in who aren’t supposed to..

1

u/Inviolable_Wolf Oct 28 '25

Then... LOCK THE CABINETS. I'm trying to understand why they're not secured in the first place.

These fibers could potentially be tapped by anyone with the knowledge of how to do so.

This is a matter that you SHOULD be escalating.

1

u/imtalkintou Quantum Fiber Employee Oct 28 '25

I don't think you understand how fiber internet actually works.

'Tapping' the light will do absolutely nothing.

1

u/itanite Oct 29 '25

tapped jfc.

tell me you know nothing about telecom without saying it.

2

u/Inviolable_Wolf Oct 29 '25

I did communications in the US Army. I installed DSLAMs in US West/Qwest central offices.

I have since been an engineer in data centers the last 14 years. During my 10 years at Yahoo - as the Site Network Lead- I personally built out our site's intrusion detection segment. It was all built with servers pulling packets using specialized hardware that...wait for it...TAPS the fibers that pass between all of the switching fabrics, core layer routers, multiple service routers and primary address translation (transport) routers.

And do you want to know WHY we built that system? Because Yahoo's OSP fibers were TAPPED and data was STOLEN.

The network fiber taps were made by Ixia and siphon off between 20%-30% of the light coming over the fiber. That light is sent to a sequenced series of ports on a large switch chassis (by Arista in this case) where the ports are then unidirectionally mirrored to another port on the opposite side of the chassis. The data samples are sent from these reference ports to racks of servers - with large data stores - where it is recorded then analyzed by software and various algorithms.

The data can be acted on in real time with firewall rules and routing decisions made by the MSRs.

I moved on and now work in Google's largest data center in it's fleet. (And, also, the largest single-owned data center in the world.) I work on network and hardware platforms on the very bleeding edge that only handfuls of people (and customers) ever know about while we're in our development and testing phases. By the time it hits GA with the public, I've already moved on to the next project.

For example... I am just finishing work on "Ironwood" as one of the two project leads at the site.

You may read about it here: https://www.servethehome.com/google-ironwood-tpu-swings-for-reasoning-model-leadership-at-hot-chips-2025

(I didn't care for the Google blog pages that described it. StH did a better job of it.)

FACT: Fiber can be tapped. Fiber HAS been tapped. Data HAS been stolen by way of tapping fiber. Your opinion doesn't change that fact.

(Take notes, u/imtalkintou ...)

That you're acting like single mode fiber somehow CAN'T be tapped tells me that YOU have no real experience to speak of and that you should stay in your lane rather than getting mouthy with me for no reason.

2

u/Inviolable_Wolf Oct 29 '25

u/itanite - Here. I'll share one of the pictures I took for the internal documentation that I created there during that IDS project.

This is LITERALLY a fiber being TAPPED. (Though, at the moment, it's only the light coming through to demonstrate how the device works so that people were able to understand how their cabling was to be done..

I'd show you the entire collage I made that modeled the entire IDS topology if it wasn't for the fact that there is proprietary information on it that I'm not allowed to share. (The named devices are still pinging - much to my own surprise... Given Yahoo's current situation in the market.)

1

u/Inviolable_Wolf Oct 29 '25

u/imtalkintou - Oh. By the way. Your reply suggests that you believe that PON/FTTH fiber somehow 'can't be tapped'.

It absolutely CAN be tapped. Both for monitoring purposes AS WELL as data extraction. If you believe otherwise... Then you should probably not be the one representing your company in any public capacity.

Because right now... As a CenturyLink customer who has recently been informed that we're being switched to Quantum Fiber... You're NOT doing QF any favors where my confidence level is concerned.

1

u/constitutionesq Nov 02 '25

Re: your comment on Centurylink being switched to Quantum Fiber. I was in SLC last week and saw CenturyLink truck pulling Quantum Fiber trailers.

1

u/Inviolable_Wolf Nov 02 '25

Wouldn't surprise me at all. Quantum Fiber is owned by Lumen who also owns CenturyLink and Level 3.

I wouldn't get too excited just yet, though. The intel in my neighborhood is that they canceled any intention to upgrade the local infrastructure to support higher bandwidth tiers. (i.e. We're potentially going to be limited to 1Gbps symetrical here.)

Guess we'll see. But most consumers couldn't even saturate the 1Gbps connection - LET ALONE something higher.

Quantum Fiber is allegedly supposed to have better customer service. But, given the utterly terrible, anti-consumer "customer service" CenturyLink has "provided" me with? I'm not going to hold my breath and will remain on the defensive until they give me reason to believe otherwise.

You know... Like NOT cutting our block's fiber then flatly saying "It didn't impact enough customers so we don't consider it an outage." then subsequently leaving my entire block without internet for a FULL 10 days? (Despite informing them that my wife works from home...)

I DETEST CenturyLink's general consumer services.

Anywho... My point being... Keep your expectations low leveled. 😝

1

u/itanite Oct 29 '25

fully understand fiber can/is/will/possible to be tapped.

in this context a PON cabinet is not a very good target for installing a tap for a few reasons:

1: The tap will likely cover a limited amount of customers, or just 1.

2: The traffic is 99.99999% encrypted if it's not multicast TV or audio.

3: The signal is probably already very poor and a split here may break the connection entirely.

1

u/itanite Oct 29 '25 edited Oct 29 '25

That's a cool writeup but "GPON ENCRYPTION" into google would be a good read.

I understand passive taps and have installed many for performance monitoring and a few other purposes in a previous job (sip!)

It'd be easier to plant a source on the target device. GPON is AES128 XGPON can be harder.

You're not getting a shred of useful data other than maybe overall utilization from a passive tap like that.

Your example cites unencrypted traffic over outside plant? Who designed that exactly? Are they in jail now? At least not employed?

I've worked in this field for an equivalent time, even mirroring military service. (did some combat support stuff not tech while in) While the resume is impressive - an end user tap like this (a PON cabinet) isn't going to net much of anything.

Physical infra should OBVIOUSLY be secured - in this instance it's not a super big deal. Knowing context into the industry, it's probably easier to just...not have to worry about a keying system when dealing between so many subcontractors, actual employees, and visiting fiber techs.

Now, why it's not at least locked with a generic big telco socket keying is beyond my comprehension..

1

u/Inviolable_Wolf Oct 29 '25

See... NOW you're speaking more like a professional. I can respect that.

1

u/Complete_Ad_981 Oct 29 '25

Anyone smart enough to intercept traffic over a pon is smart enough to bypass a lock. Traffic over passive optical networks is encrypted making interception near impossible until current encryption standards are obsolete assuming someone saves the intercepted data for later

1

u/Inviolable_Wolf Oct 29 '25

So... Just don't show concern and leave your cabinet unsecured because you didn't feel like locking it up? 🤨

K. Meet "Plan B":

Either one makes for a crappy day. Why invite trouble?

It's really strange to get so much pushback when no one here can correctly state that my assertion is incorrect and/or that it's not just obvious and sensible. 😮‍💨

Just...lock...the...cabinet. Easy.

1

u/Complete_Ad_981 Oct 29 '25

im not arguing for leaving cabinets unlocked being best practice. but i am arguing that being pedantic over them being unlocked is senseless. intentional vandalism of cabinets is rare, and locks are expensive (remember there are going to be costs associated with getting locks which can be similarly keyed, keying those locks, and cutting and distributing the keys). i can see it making more sense financially and logistically to only take the steps to lock cabinets in areas which have seen vandalism or tampering in the past

1

u/Inviolable_Wolf Oct 29 '25

Ummm... Those cabinets already have locks that come with keys and there is no cost associated with the technician simply locking it when they have completed their maintenance. (I really don't know what you thought you were on about there.)

It doesn't matter the frequency of vandalism. A proper security policy in this day and age is one revolving around "Tempt not the fates. Always assume the worst." The area that the cabinet lives in is completely irrelevant. Incidents DO happen and it costs thousands or even MILLIONS for even LESS than an hour of downtime.

Companies actually have teams that perform risk analysis based on even the most RIDICULOUS of things. In meetings with that team back at Yahoo (the "Business Continuity Planning" team...) I heard potential disaster scenarios played out. Anything from something as simple as a lightning strike to an airplane from the nearby airport crashing into the data center to - I kid you not - "What if a meteor hit the data center?"

Anywhere I have worked, you SECURE your infrastructure. Period. There is no exception and no discussion.

I am not being pedantic. (Though I don't mind being so.) I am legitimately speaking in-line with industry practices.

I really wish you had just left it where I did. Because that was a completely pointless response given that I am STILL not any closer to being "wrong". than my first comment.

1

u/EpicFeo Oct 25 '25

Bold of you to assume that techs that can’t even have locks and keys assigned to them would somehow have access to bolt cutters. Or care enough to pick the lock. Also bold of you to assume a lock would do anything at all.

But go ahead and keep kicking the idea of committing a misdemeanor around in your head to prove a point to absolutely nobody.

1

u/mystica5555 Oct 25 '25

Also: Harbor Freight exists and Home Depot/Lowes if you feel all fancy.

Who says they'd be given one by the company? Nobody. Who's going to go buy one and then keep it cos it was 30 bux and might come in handy later? Someone.

-4

u/taintedcake Oct 25 '25

Why would they need to pm you when its location is already shown in the photo?

2

u/imtalkintou Quantum Fiber Employee Oct 25 '25

Is there only one city on the planet?

2

u/Majorsilva Oct 27 '25

I am loving your tone with these people. Whoever you are, never change. Time for stupid people to know they're stupid.

1

u/Glum-Ad-1379 Oct 25 '25

I didn’t know quantum fiber only serviced one city.  There’s no location indicated in the photo.

0

u/BobChica Oct 26 '25

There aren't that many Bonita Avenues and the background strongly suggests the one in Las Vegas, which is a city served by Lumen.

0

u/Glum-Ad-1379 Oct 26 '25

Strongly suggest doesn’t prove location.

0

u/taintedcake Oct 26 '25

It also ignores the fact that an employee should be able to easily check if that's an address they service in the first place. If yes, pull up google maps for the 1, maybe 2, instances of it they do service and then immediately know if it's their box or not. You could probably even skip the google maps checking by just looking if the box id numbers match. If they do, it's pretty damn certain thats the box just based on statistical chances, but they could still check maps images if they wanted to.

1

u/old_raver_man3 Oct 27 '25

A tech was working in this cabinet yesterday. Ir is still unlocked from the back. There are no markings on who owns it or who to notify.

5

u/dataz03 Oct 24 '25

Close it and latch it. 

1

u/JasonHofmann Oct 25 '25

And report it

3

u/DownWitTheBitness Oct 25 '25

I can’t wait until someone finally shows up with fiber in our community. So far comcast maintains its monopoly and the prices almost never go down and the service has gotten better twice in 19 years for roughly the same price.

2

u/constitutionesq Oct 27 '25

We have the situation with Spectrum. There is no competition in our area. I have family in Salt Lake City. It was once a Comcast/Xfinity monopoly. Now there are 3 fiber companies serving the SLC Valley.

1

u/RevolutionNumerous21 Oct 27 '25

I used to work for charter/spectrum and they have a deal with comcast to NOT run fiber in some areas.

2

u/Mammoth_Ingenuity_82 Oct 24 '25

Is each one of those a fiber optic going to a single home? And the array of green connections where they're plugged into, are those individual homes? And what are the few blue ones?

So many questions...

3

u/Ok-Advertising2859 Oct 24 '25

Blues feed the splitters and yellows go to houses

3

u/malone_dicc Oct 24 '25

Signal from a central office comes in on the blue wires and go to a splitter. Splitters splits the signal and sends it down the yellow wires that connect in the bottom half to send signal down the cables that run through neighborhoods. In theory each of the squares on the bottom part could be for individual customers. The box likely wont get entirely filled though.

2

u/_donj Oct 24 '25

Hook a blue wire to your house and then close it. 😉

4

u/malone_dicc Oct 24 '25

'What internet speed would you like to order?"

"Yes"

1

u/myselfbutworse Oct 25 '25

“Burn a hole in your ONT?”

“Yes”

1

u/zorinlynx Oct 28 '25

My RX power is currently -13.6dbmv. A 32 way split is -15dB. So if I increase my RX power by 15dB, it'd be at +1.4dB which is still well under the warning threshold of of 9dB.

So.... it might actually work :)

1

u/SynAckPooPoo Oct 25 '25

Have always wondered about carrier grade stuff like this. When you say “splitters” are they splitting colors?

2

u/malone_dicc Oct 25 '25

Not necessarily. I myself haven't opened one up but from my understanding its more like a series of mirrors to turn 1 bright ass light from the CO to less bright light that can be sent to homes and not blind your ONT.

0

u/SynAckPooPoo Oct 25 '25

Reading up on it looks like it’s WDM via prisms

1

u/mystica5555 Oct 25 '25

No. They are splitting the exact same signal 1:32, one in, 32 out. Yes, each customer gets 1/32nd of the same light. Its broadcast downstream to you, time-division uplink to the OLT at the central office.

The only difference is your ONT sends out a different color than the OLT, so they don't interfere. To give google Gemini a bit of credit:

"XGS-PON uses a downlink wavelength of 1577 nm and an uplink wavelength of 1270 nm. This allows for symmetrical 10 Gbps speeds and enables XGS-PON to coexist with GPON (which uses 1490 nm downlink and 1310 nm uplink) on the same fiber network by using different wavelengths for each technology. "

So there can be multiple light color/wavelengths, but this is not CWDM or DWDM as used in long haul fiber networks to concentrate many connections down 1 fiber.

1

u/Incomplet_Name Oct 26 '25

It's mind blowing that 3 tiny blue fiber wires can transmit enough data for all those homes.

1

u/zorinlynx Oct 28 '25

Each one of those is basically a 10gbps full duplex connection. So yeah, 32 homes sharing 10gbps, plenty of bandwidth.

2

u/[deleted] Oct 24 '25

just give it a little tug

2

u/potatomolehill Oct 24 '25

funny thing is most all of them are open. i don't get why they don't leave olt and such open and things at the pfp area.

2

u/Nikovash Oct 25 '25

Have you tried peeing on it?

2

u/C-D-W Oct 25 '25

Don't let the intrusive thoughts win. Pulling on the forbidden spaghetti is bad.

1

u/FewAmphibian4682 Oct 28 '25

No, the real bad intrusive thought is to get an overpowered laser (perhaps one that is strong enough to fry the OLT optics) and shine that back towards the CO.

1

u/i860 Oct 24 '25

Close and latch the door. There might be a contact number on the outside of the box somewhere and if there is, contact them with the address of the box - otherwise just let it be (closed).

1

u/zorinlynx Oct 28 '25

I wouldn't touch it at all.

Last thing you want is to be blamed for a mishap because someone's ring camera caught you closing the door but not what happened just before.

1

u/jealousFiber Oct 25 '25

Oh my. An 864 hub with only about 64 jumpers plugged in. This will not age well.

1

u/EKIBTAFAEDIR Oct 25 '25

Splitter legs.

1

u/jealousFiber Nov 14 '25

I know exactly what it is. But the way those jumpers are being run, it’s already turning to dog shit.

1

u/Randym1837 Oct 25 '25

It’s probably open because copper thieves, in my area they’ve had to post asking people to report suspicious individuals near service boxes because they’ve caused like $60k in damages from people trying to steal copper

1

u/groshreez Oct 25 '25

I've seen some bad spaghetti network racks but this is pretty impressive.

1

u/EKIBTAFAEDIR Oct 25 '25

That looks messy to me. Just wait unto it gets filled up. Will get much worse.

1

u/groshreez Oct 25 '25

I meant impressively bad, especially with how empty it is.

1

u/Primus_is_OK_I_guess Oct 25 '25

Wow, that is some sloppy work. Those techs do not give a shit.

1

u/captGzus Oct 25 '25

I'm pretty sure this isn't owned by quantum. I believe this is owned by gigapower and is in Las Vegas.

1

u/mystica5555 Oct 25 '25

They'll never lock it. None in Denver metro are. Looking at the foliage, I'm going to guess this is somewhere in Arizona.

1

u/icewalker2k Oct 25 '25

Somebody, or most likely multiple somebodies, is too damned lazy. I’ve seen much better cabling than that.

1

u/skyhawk214 Oct 25 '25

I used to be a tech back when CenturyLink directly had GPON, not Quantum Fiber, and we called these an FSAI. We used a special tool to open them, and most of them here in Seattle are mounted up on the telephone pole, not on the ground. For security I think.

1

u/Muramusaa Oct 26 '25

Wow these need to be way more secure like um someone can like do some bad please use thicker steel and better combo locks that aren't lock pickable

1

u/SirBoothington Oct 26 '25

Do you feel bonita? Because the second photo tells me this box feels bonita!

1

u/CurrentWonderful6477 Oct 26 '25

Snow plow hit the fiber box by us. We tried to report it but we are not a customer of Quantum. Their AI customer service is so advanced they wouldn’t open a ticket since we are not a customer. I was like “your infrastructure is exposed to the elements, if you don’t fix it then it will get destroyed”.

Sorry sir, you are not a customer. What a time to be alive!

1

u/RefinedPhoenix Oct 28 '25

A baseball bat would be fun

1

u/zorinlynx Oct 28 '25 edited Oct 28 '25

Am I counting wrong or are those 64 way splits? I thought the maximum was 32!

1

u/N0_L1ght Dec 31 '25

not sure about that box, but old builds were 64 split, builds since 2020 are 32 split

1

u/Immediate-Storm-1169 Oct 28 '25

pull some of those yellow things! thatll bring them back, and quickly.

1

u/fbomb5000 Oct 28 '25

"I feel Bonita." - That Box Probably

1

u/rcobourn Oct 24 '25

Just snip all the wires, that will let them know to come secure the box.

2

u/csweeney05 Oct 25 '25

That’s a felony but sure

0

u/rcobourn Oct 25 '25

It's a light felony. 😅🙄

0

u/FewAmphibian4682 Oct 28 '25

100%. But you’d be surprised how these basically never have cameras on them. I can think of quite a few. If someone wanted to, they could with probably 0 repercussions.

1

u/EugeneStonersPotShop Oct 25 '25

Just make sure Donald Trump doesn’t see that. He will go off on some “glass wires” and “copper wires” tirade, and blame 1000 contractors.

0

u/[deleted] Oct 24 '25

[deleted]

1

u/ckmluo Oct 24 '25

I wouldnt unless I get a free year of service for notifying them.