[OPLIN 4cast] OPLIN 4Cast #225: How to bury a cable

[Editor]

Email not displaying correctly? View it in your browser. 
<http://www.oplin.org/4cast/>
OPLIN 4Cast

OPLIN 4Cast #225: How to bury a cable
April 13th, 2011

<http://www.oplin.org/4cast/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/fiber_cable.gif>This 
week's /4cast/ diverges from our usual offerings, in that it 
does not concern any hot new tech news we've gathered from 
the media. Fiber optic Internet connections have been on our 
mind lately, as we prepare to install fiber this summer to 
146 Ohio public libraries that are currently connected to 
OPLIN with copper T1 circuits. This will be the biggest 
change to the OPLIN network since it was first installed in 
1995-96. Then we saw the story 
<http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/georgia/8442056/Woman-who-cut-internet-to-Georgia-and-Armenia-had-never-heard-of-web.html> 
about the old woman who cut off the Internet to Armenia when 
she mistaken dug up a fiber optic trunk line while trying to 
steal copper cable. We had to wonder if that trunk line was 
correctly installed, which eventually brought us to the 
Fiber Optic Association's "Reference Guide To Fiber Optics: 
Outside Plant Fiber Optic Network Installation 
<http://www.thefoa.org/tech/ref/OSP/install.html> ." If 
you're as curious as we were about fiber optic installation 
procedures, you might find these quotes from that Reference 
Guide interesting.

    * "Outside plant (OSP) installations of fiber optic
      cables can be much more diverse than premises
      installations. OSP installs may include installing
      aerial cable, direct-buried cable, underground cable
      in conduit or installing conduit or innerduct and then
      pulling cable, or placing cable underwater. A single
      link may include several types of installation, for
      example aerial in one section, pulling in conduit on a
      bridge crossing and burying the rest of the cable."
    * "Heavy-duty cables can be buried directly or cables in
      ducts for extra protection can be installed using
      direct burial techniques. Cables can be supplied
      already in ducts for burial. [...] Typically trunk
      cables in most areas are installed 3-4 feet deep
      (1-1.2 m), but in residential or urban areas, cables
      may be buried only 2 feet (0.6 m) deep. Some cables
      can be directly installed in sawn grooves in roads,
      but these are only buried a few inches deep, still
      within the roadway material and are filled with sealer."
    * "Cables can sometimes be installed by blowing special
      cable types into ducts called duct lines, micro-ducts
      or sub-ducts which have been installed in larger
      conduit or even pipes for carrying water, sewage or
      gas. High pressure compressed air provides an
      aerodynamic effect, floating the cable on the air
      stream and carrying it down the duct, allowing
      installation lengths as long as 2 km (6,500 feet.)"
    * "OSP cables generally do not meet NEC flammability
      requirements, so the cable entering a building must be
      terminated or spliced to indoor cables soon after
      entry, generally within 50 feet (16 meters) to meet
      fire codes. Some OSP cables have double jackets, an
      outer one for outdoors and an inner one rated for
      indoor use, so the outer jacket can be stripped off
      inside the building and the cable run to the equipment
      room."

*/Price fact:/*

While the cost of building fiber-optic networks has 
historically been high when compared to copper networks, 
copper metal pricing is expected to hit $11,000 per metric 
ton sometime this year, leading to both higher purchase 
costs and increased theft of copper cable.
------------------------------------------------------------
The */OPLIN 4cast/* is a weekly compilation of recent 
headlines, topics, and trends that could impact public 
libraries. You can subscribe to it in a variety of ways, 
such as:

    * *RSS feed.* You can receive the OPLIN 4cast via RSS
      feed by subscribing to the following URL:
      http://www.oplin.org/4cast/index.php/?feed=rss2.
    * *Live Bookmark.* If you're using the Firefox web
      browser, you can go to the 4cast website
      (http://www.oplin.org/4cast/) and click on the orange
      "radio wave" icon on the right side of the address
      bar. In Internet Explorer 7, click on the same icon to
      view or subscribe to the 4cast RSS feed.
    * *E-mail.* You can have the OPLIN 4cast delivered via
      e-mail (a'la OPLINlist and OPLINtech) by subscribing
      to the 4cast mailing list at
      http://mail.oplin.org/mailman/listinfo/OPLIN4cast.


-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://mail.oplin.org/pipermail/oplin4cast/attachments/20110413/226d6a33/attachment-0001.html
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: kubrickheader.jpg
Type: image/jpeg
Size: 38379 bytes
Desc: not available
Url : http://mail.oplin.org/pipermail/oplin4cast/attachments/20110413/226d6a33/kubrickheader-0001.jpg
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: fiber_cable.gif
Type: image/gif
Size: 15780 bytes
Desc: not available
Url : http://mail.oplin.org/pipermail/oplin4cast/attachments/20110413/226d6a33/fiber_cable-0001.gif