Fiber install at work

[StevieC]

I got to watch them run our new fiber internet line today. (Managing the project for my boss)

It was neat to see the machine that automatically strips, cuts, fuses and melts protective heat shrink over the connection.
It even shows you how aligned the two fibers being joined together with a microscopic view of the fibers on its on-screen display and the resulting signal loss caused by the joint.

It was fascinating to watch. This is what the machine looks like:

Although this isn't the machine that was used in the video below, it shows the process well...

 

[kschachn]

Related to that, check out how they repair damaged or broken undersea cables.

 

[Donald]

And how much is that little machine? The phone company has an enclosed trailer they tow around and I assume they do the fiber optic work in the trailer.

 

[spasm3]

I 'd like to see how they build the splicer!

 

[OVERKILL]

Originally Posted by Donald
And how much is that little machine? The phone company has an enclosed trailer they tow around and I assume they do the fiber optic work in the trailer.


Yeah, that's how Rogers does their primary (pole) splices here, though it's more like a cube/utility van. I have quite a few fibre installs that I manage and we deal with Rogers exclusively, as they purchased our local fibre plant as part of a large acquisition quite some time ago. The internal splice where it is handed off to flexible media to route to the media converter is more similar to what StevieC's post shows.

StevieC: Is this Bell? I assume it is, and is this dedicated or the SMB offering? What kind of speed are you paying for?

 

[StevieC]

The company that did the work is Trinity and they do for Bell, Telus, Rogers here.... The machine is $10K.

The line they ran looks like RG-6 Coax. Inside there is 12 strands of fiber thinner than a human hair but with all sorts of jackets and supporting fiber material.
4 fibers will be in use. 1-TX, 1-RX, then 2 for back-up, other 8 are spares.

It's dedicated service. We are getting 50/50 service for our VPN to the U.S. which is then routed to Japan. Huge improvement over our 1mbps/100kbps we have now.
Not cheap either. It's about 10x what I was paying for my 50/10 DSL when I had that at home.


Originally Posted by kschachn
Related to that, check out how they repair damaged or broken undersea cables.

I have watched various videos on that on YouTube. Quite interesting. Also with the initial laying of the fibre cables.

 

[OVERKILL]

Originally Posted by StevieC
The company that did the work is Trinity and they do for Bell, Telus, Rogers here.... The machine is $10K.

The line they ran looks like RG-6 Coax. Inside there is 12 strands of fiber thinner than a human hair but with all sorts of jackets and supporting fiber material.
4 fibers will be in use. 1-TX, 1-RX, then 2 for back-up, other 8 are spares.

It's dedicated service. We are getting 50/50 service for our VPN to the U.S. which is then routed to Japan. Huge improvement over our 1mbps/100kbps we have now.
Not cheap either. It's about 10x what I was paying for my 50/10 DSL when I had that at home.


Originally Posted by kschachn
Related to that, check out how they repair damaged or broken undersea cables.

I have watched various videos on that on YouTube. Quite interesting. Also with the initial laying of the fibre cables.


50/50 is what we started at with Rogers at our one location, we are presently on 200/200, which IIRC, is now actually cheaper than what we were initially paying for the 50/50 service, as Rogers recoups their install costs over the first term and when you hit contract renewal time, those costs are now covered, so you can get more speed for less money.

Definitely sounds like a different media than what Rogers uses here. I think there are 8 strands: 1xRX + backup, 1xTX + backup and then the ability to do that whole setup again. It's a flat cable, whilst IIRC, the Bell stuff is round. Each pair is capable of 10Gbit FD IIRC.

 

[StevieC]

Here is some porn for you.... hahahahhaha

Black cable is how it comes in, inside that black cable is the blue cable you see in the second picture, and then it goes into the white flat box where splices are made to the yellow patch type cables and into a distribution block to the left.

 

[OVERKILL]

Yeah, that setup is a fair bit different than what Rogers provides. I'll see if I can grab you a pic

 

[StevieC]

Originally Posted by OVERKILL
Yeah, that setup is a fair bit different than what Rogers provides. I'll see if I can grab you a pic

 

[barryh]

All very high tech these days. I'm going back 15 years now but where I worked fibre installation was so expensive they would run an 8 core multi core fibre between buildings and only terminate two cores. When I needed to utilise two of the spare cores I had a go at hand stripping, cleaving, casting in resin and hand polishing the fibre termination on a glass plate. Work just fine and cost me next to nothing. Stripped fibre is dangerous stuff to work with as it will so easily puncture the skin.

 

[Skippy722]

I would love to have fiber, but I'm stuck with Comcast cable or Frontier DSL.

 

[StevieC]

Originally Posted by Skippy722
I would love to have fiber, but I'm stuck with Comcast cable or Frontier DSL.

I got Gigabit Cable at the moment in our old infrastructure area. It's awesome... I will downgrade to 250 when the promotional price is over though...

 

[Skippy722]

Originally Posted by StevieC
Originally Posted by Skippy722
I would love to have fiber, but I'm stuck with Comcast cable or Frontier DSL.

I got Gigabit Cable at the moment in our old infrastructure area. It's awesome... I will downgrade to 250 when the promotional price is over though...


I cheaped out, 25 down for $20 a month lol... the 1Tb cap is asinine though.

 

[StevieC]

That's a really good price compared to here... My 50/10 DSL was costing me $60/month ($44.44 USD) although I had unlimited. The uncapped plans are usually 200-400gb / month cap.

 

[OVERKILL]

Finally grabbed you a pic of an RBS termination. It's 180 degrees out, but meh, wasn't worth correcting.

Firstly, I'm thinking my pair count is off and there are two groups of 6, so it matches your observed 12-count.
The black outer jacket is removed revealing the two jackets of 6. The one is hacked off, the other joined into the flexible yellow cable, which then has all three pairs terminated. One is backup, the other a spare.

RBS uses Corning, whilst Bell appears to use Belden.

 

[StevieC]

Cool, thanks

 

[Skippy722]

That's just the introductory rate, jumps up to $45 a month after that. I'll call and lock in some other rate, probably at a higher speed, I canceled once on them I'll do it again and get satellite tv again!

 

[Blaze]

Originally Posted by Skippy722
I would love to have fiber, but I'm stuck with Comcast cable or Frontier DSL.


Don't feel bad I'm still on dial-up here

 

[StevieC]

That still exists?