Thursday, August 21, 2014

Important Considerations In Fibre Optic Cable Installation

By Deanne Shepard


Fibre optic cable consists of bundles of extremely pure glass threads that is used to transmit data modulated onto beam of light waves. The cable can be easily damaged if it is improperly handled or installed. Special care is therefore required during fibre optic cable installation to ensure reliable operation.

Fixing wires in whichever location adheres to certain restrictions that ought to be adhered to for appropriate deployment, better handling, efficient operation and probable maintenance in future. It should always be conducted cautiously.

The first thing you need to do is conduct a thorough site survey prior to optic fibre placement. This tries to find out if prevailing conditions on the site require some attention. Probable risks such as high level of temperatures or difficulty in handling machinery should be noted and necessary plans undertaken. Moreover, regulations relating to constructions should be considered. In case of queries regarding the same, they should be addressed by the highest authority.

Thereafter a comprehensive design is done before the deployment. This thus entails certain procedures whose basic foundation depends on the communication paths needed, determined hardware requirements, length of wires and lastly compiling a list of various components and hardware needed and the exact points they are used.

Come up with an adequate pulling plan. This plan outlines the concerns identified during the site survey to the team undertaking deployment. It may include all the processes undertaken during acquisition of cables, the position of intermediary access points, defined roles of an individual member of the team and corresponding locations of splice.

Follow the right procedures for cable deployment. Since fibres are very sensitive to moisture, its end should be covered with an end cap, heavy tape or equivalent at all times. The let-off reel must never be left unattended during a pull because excess or difficult pulls, center-pull or back feeding techniques may be employed.

Ensure that the optic fibres minimum bend radius is never surpassed. During cable placement, it is important that it is not bent to either increase or decrease radius than its normal radius value. After it has been installed, and the pulling tension removed, the fibre may only be bent to the normal radius. The shape of fibre optic cable can be distorted at will to suit your needs as long as there is no violation of the constraints of minimum bend radius.

When doing installation make sure that at any stage, highest recommended load is not surpassed. Since every wire has its own strength rating, the remaining tension on the wire after deployment need no be greater than this value.

It is always a common exercise to ensure you leave an extra cable at both the start and end of the optic wire run. In addition to this, an extra cable should be placed at strategic points to ensure smooth and reliable operation.

In order to make sure that the fibre plant is properly deployed, and any future trouble shooting and improvement is made easy, you need to document guidelines followed during deployment in a simplified order.




About the Author:



No comments:

Post a Comment