Tag: OPTICAL FIBER CABLE

Advantages of Jetting Fiber Optic Cable Over Traditional Pulling

What are the advantages of blowing or jetting fiber optic cable vs. traditional pulling?

Pulling and blowing are the two primary fiber installation methods. But each of these techniques can impact the longevity, performance, and return on investment (ROI) of a fiber optic network. If you take into account the fragility of glass or fused silica during installation, distance to be covered, efficiency, and costs, you may see that jetting (blowing) offers many advantages over traditional cable-pulling techniques.

An Overview of Fiber Optic Cable Installation Methods

• Pulling: It involves pulling the fiber optic cable through pre-installed underground or aerial ducts. You can pull the cable manually or using a reeling machine. You’ll also need a pulling tape to haul the cable while measuring the distance covered.

• Blowing: With this technique, high-speed air pressure pushes fiber optic cables through standard ductwork or microduct systems.

Here are the reasons why cable jetting is superior to traditional pulling methods:

Minimal Risk of Tension Damage

Each brand of optical fiber cable has a maximum tensile strength. But in pulling, there’s a risk of straining the cable beyond its limit, which can compromise the fiber’s performance and cut its service life. Unchecked resistance forces, such as friction, on the sidewalls of cables and ducts, can also cause damage during a “pulling” installation.

In contrast, jetting involves little or no pulling, which significantly minimizes strain on the fiber optic cable. You can not only configure the system’s hydraulic pack or air-compressing equipment to control airflow inside the duct but also monitor the conduit and fiber to minimize damage.

To minimize friction during cable jetting, consider applying lubricants meant for the method. Ducts with low-friction interior walls may also help.

Suitability for Long-Haul Fiber Optic Networks

Pulling isn’t the best option for placing outside plant (OSP) fiber optic cable. With the technique, there’s always a high possibility of pulling the cable into conduit bends. And as bend angles continue to accumulate, it becomes increasingly difficult to optimize pull length. The bad news is that ducts for cross-country fiber optic networks can have many bends.

As such, pulling is ideal for short-distance fiber optic cable deployment. Distance will vary from one manufacturer to another and cable jacket material plays a role too.

With high air speed blowing fiber optic installation, however, conduit bends and undulations aren’t as much of an issue as they are with traditional cable-pulling techniques. The blowing force doesn’t pull the cable into a duct bend. It instead pushes it smoothly around every turn or curve.

In other words, the duct route geometry doesn’t impact installation distance in this case. Consequently, air-assisted installation lets you place fiber optic cable thousands of feet between jetting sites. That’s why it’s suitable for OSP fiber deployments, for example, telecommunication, CATV, and internet networks.

Reduced Costs

Cable jetting equipment and ductwork may be initially expensive. But you can amortize these upfront costs depending on current needs, and your initial investment may pay off in future savings on upgrades. For example, you don’t have to invest in redundant higher fiber counts when you can cheaply upgrade capacity in tandem with changing requirements. 

Likewise, “pulling” is more labor-intensive than the blowing method. The technique involves more equipment movement, and it may require the positioning of placing tools at intermediate points and both ends of long OSP runs. Additional workers and extra equipment translate to higher installation costs. Cable jetting requires fewer cabling technicians, however.

Keep in mind that air-assisted optical fiber installation minimizes the number of splices needed. Cables installed this way don’t usually require “figure-eight” looping to prevent twisting every time duct changes direction. Since the approach has fewer intermediate-assist placement operations, it limits the number of handholes and other access points required along the cabling route.

Suitability for Microduct Installation

Jetting is very effective in pushing fiber optic cable through microducts. With the blowing method, you can place microduct cable in continuous lengths. The technique is most suitable for modern optical fiber cables that tend to contain bare fibers, and sometimes reduced cladding diameters, both of which contribute to decreased outer cable diameters.

The thinner a fiber optic cable is, the larger the number of fibers you can place in specific innerduct. As such, jetting is the best installation technique when you wish to make the most of the available duct capacity. It also allows you to work with small but flexible fibers that go through multiple microduct twists and turns over long distances with near-zero bend losses.

Additionally, when setting up microducts for fiber optic cable jetting, you may include redundant ductwork to accommodate new fiber in the future as required. This way, you avoid the unnecessary costs of placing dark fiber, which may become obsolete sooner than anticipated.

Appropriate for Removal of Old Fiber

Pulled fiber optic cable may be difficult to remove when no longer needed. The presence of old and unwanted cables in mission-critical physical pathways may limit your ability to optimize your optical network capacity or even upgrade to higher-performance fibers.

But after installing optical fiber by cable jetting, you may easily remove it by the same approach when necessary. You may be able to reuse the removed fiber optic cable since the removal process is gentle enough to minimize or avoid damage.

Quick Installation

Cable jetting is faster than the “pulling” method. The pushing device can move fiber optic cable at speeds of 350 feet per minute or higher. With the air-jetting technique, you can quickly push cables through pre-installed innerduct or underground ductwork. But in most cases, you can only pull fiber at a rate of 100-200 feet per minute, or even slower.  

Less Disruption Choose cable jetting to upgrade your optical fiber with minimal interruption to ongoing workflows or operations. The cable-pulling approach is more disruptive.  

Advantages of Jetting Fiber Optic Cable Over Traditional Pulling

What are the advantages of blowing or jetting fiber optic cable vs. traditional pulling?
Pulling and blowing are the two primary fiber installation methods. But each of these techniques can impact the longevity, performance, and return on investment (ROI) of a fiber optic network. If you take into account the fragility of glass or fused silica during installation, distance to be covered, efficiency, and costs, you may see that jetting (blowing) offers many advantages over traditional cable-pulling techniques.
An Overview of Fiber Optic Cable Installation Methods
• Pulling: It involves pulling the fiber optic cable through pre-installed underground or aerial ducts. You can pull the cable manually or using a reeling machine. You’ll also need a pulling tape to haul the cable while measuring the distance covered.
• Blowing: With this technique, high-speed air pressure pushes fiber optic cables through standard ductwork or microduct systems.
Here are the reasons why cable jetting is superior to traditional pulling methods:
Minimal Risk of Tension Damage
Each brand of optical fiber cable has a maximum tensile strength. But in pulling, there’s a risk of straining the cable beyond its limit, which can compromise the fiber’s performance and cut its service life. Unchecked resistance forces, such as friction, on the sidewalls of cables and ducts, can also cause damage during a “pulling” installation.
In contrast, jetting involves little or no pulling, which significantly minimizes strain on the fiber optic cable. You can not only configure the system’s hydraulic pack or air-compressing equipment to control airflow inside the duct but also monitor the conduit and fiber to minimize damage.
To minimize friction during cable jetting, consider applying lubricants meant for the method. Ducts with low-friction interior walls may also help.
Suitability for Long-Haul Fiber Optic Networks
Pulling isn’t the best option for placing outside plant (OSP) fiber optic cable. With the technique, there’s always a high possibility of pulling the cable into conduit bends. And as bend angles continue to accumulate, it becomes increasingly difficult to optimize pull length. The bad news is that ducts for cross-country fiber optic networks can have many bends.
As such, pulling is ideal for short-distance fiber optic cable deployment. Distance will vary from one manufacturer to another and cable jacket material plays a role too.
With high air speed blowing fiber optic installation, however, conduit bends and undulations aren’t as much of an issue as they are with traditional cable-pulling techniques. The blowing force doesn’t pull the cable into a duct bend. It instead pushes it smoothly around every turn or curve.
In other words, the duct route geometry doesn’t impact installation distance in this case. Consequently, air-assisted installation lets you place fiber optic cable thousands of feet between jetting sites. That’s why it’s suitable for OSP fiber deployments, for example, telecommunication, CATV, and internet networks.
Reduced Costs
Cable jetting equipment and ductwork may be initially expensive. But you can amortize these upfront costs depending on current needs, and your initial investment may pay off in future savings on upgrades. For example, you don’t have to invest in redundant higher fiber counts when you can cheaply upgrade capacity in tandem with changing requirements.
Likewise, “pulling” is more labor-intensive than the blowing method. The technique involves more equipment movement, and it may require the positioning of placing tools at intermediate points and both ends of long OSP runs. Additional workers and extra equipment translate to higher installation costs. Cable jetting requires fewer cabling technicians, however.
Keep in mind that air-assisted optical fiber installation minimizes the number of splices needed. Cables installed this way don’t usually require “figure-eight” looping to prevent twisting every time duct changes direction. Since the approach has fewer intermediate-assist placement operations, it limits the number of handholes and other access points required along the cabling route.
Suitability for Microduct Installation
Jetting is very effective in pushing fiber optic cable through microducts. With the blowing method, you can place microduct cable in continuous lengths. The technique is most suitable for modern optical fiber cables that tend to contain bare fibers, and sometimes reduced cladding diameters, both of which contribute to decreased outer cable diameters.
The thinner a fiber optic cable is, the larger the number of fibers you can place in specific innerduct. As such, jetting is the best installation technique when you wish to make the most of the available duct capacity. It also allows you to work with small but flexible fibers that go through multiple microduct twists and turns over long distances with near-zero bend losses.
Additionally, when setting up microducts for fiber optic cable jetting, you may include redundant ductwork to accommodate new fiber in the future as required. This way, you avoid the unnecessary costs of placing dark fiber, which may become obsolete sooner than anticipated.
Appropriate for Removal of Old Fiber
Pulled fiber optic cable may be difficult to remove when no longer needed. The presence of old and unwanted cables in mission-critical physical pathways may limit your ability to optimize your optical network capacity or even upgrade to higher-performance fibers.
But after installing optical fiber by cable jetting, you may easily remove it by the same approach when necessary. You may be able to reuse the removed fiber optic cable since the removal process is gentle enough to minimize or avoid damage.
Quick Installation
Cable jetting is faster than the “pulling” method. The pushing device can move fiber optic cable at speeds of 350 feet per minute or higher. With the air-jetting technique, you can quickly push cables through pre-installed innerduct or underground ductwork. But in most cases, you can only pull fiber at a rate of 100-200 feet per minute, or even slower.
Less Disruption
Choose cable jetting to upgrade your optical fiber with minimal interruption to ongoing workflows or operations. The cable-pulling approach is more disruptive.

Optical fiber beyond telecommunication

Optical fiber beyond telecommunication
Optical fiber is great for carrying huge amounts of data over long distances at unimagined speeds and providing us with high-speed Internet connections that nowadays are more a necessity than a luxury, but they also have an excellent throughput in other fields beside telecommunications, since they are used from non-invasive surgeries to pool illumination.
Optical fiber made it possible for surgeries to be minimally invasive and to have advanced diagnostic technologies due to implements like optical fiber cameras. Medical optical fiber applications also include X-ray imaging, ophthalmic lasers, light therapy, dental head pieces, surgical microscopy and endoscopy. The study “Global Market Study on Medical Fiber Optics: Asia to Witness Highest Growth by 2019” says that medical fiber global market will reach a value of USD 1,336.1 million by 2019.
Optical fiber is used in the decoration field because it provides an attractive and economical way of illumination. It is used at museums exhibitions due to their heat-free attribute and in underwater lighting because they don’t conduct electricity.
Optical fibers also provide extremely focused light, they are long-lasting, look like neon, colors can change according to the applied filter and their installment and maintenance is easy. Also they look really cute, don’t they?
Lighting applications with optical fiber are being used in the automotive industry too because they it can be installed in reduced spaces and it transmits cold light. Companies like Volvo, Audi, BMW, Jaguar and Saab use fiber to build the communication system that connects sensors with airbags and traction control devices in order to increase passenger’s safety.
Roll Royce’s trademark “Starlight headliner” is built with over 1300 optical fibers which make Phantom’s ceiling look like a starlight night.
Optical fiber sensors measure, pressure and strain. But they are also used to look for displacements, vibrations and rotations in civil structures such as highways, buildings and bridges or smart structures like airplanes wings and sport equipment. They are also very helpful for monitoring oil, power cables and pipelines in places that are really hard to reach.
Sensors work with a detector arrangement that measures the subtle changes that happen in the light as it travels through an optical fiber.  They offer a lot of advantages because they don’t require electrical cables, therefore can be safely used in high-voltage and electrical environments.

Is it OK to bend a Regular Optical Fiber Cable?

One of the most common concerns amongst the installation of fiber cables is related to the possibility of bending a fiber cable or not. Worrying about this issue comes off rather naturally: if one does bend a fiber cable, let’s say around a corner, would that harm the cable? Or even more importantly, would it affect the quality of the transmission?
I’m sorry to share this news, but the answer is… yes. However, you do not need to let this concern grow out of proportion. You just need to take under consideration the following bits of information we’re about to show you, and you will be able to get over any issue you may have in regards to the bending -or not- of your fiber cables.
Under ideal conditions, there should be no loss of light within the fiber cable, which is one of the greatest features of fiber cables in the first place. Nonetheless, the scenario surrounding our actual installations are very far from that dreamy or utopian setting.
Depending on the way we install our systems, from the way we configure the connections through the actual alignment of cables, the inevitable losses of operating within the real world can be reduced or increased -and in this gap, it’s exactly where your control plays an essential role!
That control should be based on solid information. That being said, you should be aware of a parameter called “Bend Radius”, which is the minimum radius a cable can be bent without suffering any sort of damage. In other words, the smaller the bend radius, the larger the flexibility of the cable. Some manufacturers indicate the Bend Radius of fiber cables (Beyondtech surely does, is in its packaging and in their datasheets), but if you don’t have that information, you should know that the typical Bend Radius for fiber patch cables is around 30 mm.
Remember that you should be able to take any action that reduces those inevitable losses, that’s why it’s so important that you know this factor: bend loss starts happening only when the fiber cable is being bent at a higher measure than the cable’s maximum bend tolerance.
When installing your systems, you also need to be careful that the jackets have not only been perfectly built but that they’re also perfectly connected, since flaws in either one of these instances will result in losses in dB across time.
Another factor you need to take into consideration is pressure: if you tight your cables one against the other too tightly, that excess will generate leaks in the long term. Another eventuality you must avoid is when you have heavy objects pressed against the cables, just because that will definitely provoke an increase in losses. (This of course only applies to indoor cables)
As the supervisor of your network, you should develop the habit of constantly taking a thorough look at your installations: sometimes objects move after unforeseeable displacements, or get bigger thanks to high temperatures, so that object that originally didn’t disturb the rest of your installation may actually do it after a while.
Long story short: it is OK to bend your fiber cable, but you just need to be careful. You now know some facts that can lead you to properly design and implement strategies to reduce the losses that will inevitably come your way when using your fiber cables for installing your networks.

WIRELESS RADIO LINK VS OPTICAL FIBER CABLE

by http://www.fiber-mart.com

Data transfer in the mobile backhaul networks (from radio base stations to the core network) can be done in two ways – wireless using Point-to-Point radio communication or wired through optical fiber cables and copper wires.
Copper wires are quickly being phased-out as they are costly and do not support the necessary data rates. Optical fiber offers the heighest data throughput capacity but requires a physical link, which is costly as it requires permits (both by landlords and municipalities) and involves heavy construction work – hence take a long time to build out. Wireless connections on the other hand offers lower installations costs, more rapid deployment and still enables high data throughput.
Wireless Point-to-Point radios have been used for a long time to connect base stations (access points for mobile users) to the core mobile network. Today, approximately 50% of all cellular base stations are connected using wireless links. The downside has previously been limitations in capacity, but with the development of more cost-efficient millimeter wave radio solutions this has changed. Millimeter wave bands (primarily V-band and E-band) enable Gigabit data rates as they offer access to vastly more spectrum bandwidth compared to traditional microwave bands. Limited hop-lengths for millimeter wave communication (1 – 5km for E-band) is becoming less of a restriction as mobile base stations are installed closer and closer to each other.
With the build-out of 5G, millions of new base stations will be installed closer to the end user. Deploying these quickly and cost-efficiently will be a challenge. Where fiber is already available it will be the natural choice, but where it is not, wireless connections are expected to grow rapidly.
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