Electical Contractor

Practically everything I know about estimating fiber optic jobs I learned from Doug Elliott. Doug is a well-known instructor who learned fiber optics from me at the first Fiber U in 1993 and is a full-time installer in the Toronto area.

One of the negative aspects of high tech is its habit of using abbreviations and acronyms for practically everything. It gets so bad, we joke about all the TLAs or three-letter acronyms.

There’s no doubt that termination of fiber optic cables is the most difficult part of the fiber optic installation process. Pulling cables is easy, as they are more rugged than Category 5 copper cables, and installing patch panels and other hardware is straightforward.

We all know about maintenance. We know things wear out or get dirty and need replacing or cleaning. This is especially true about cars. We regularly change the oil and filter, rotate the tires, and get the engine tuned up to keep our vehicles running well.

Last month, we mentioned centralized fiber local area networks (LANs) as a place where fiber optics are more cost effective than copper wiring. What exactly is a centralized fiber network and how is one designed and built?

Having lit a large stuffed elephant in Wisconsin, and a three-story high wooden one in New Jersey, CLI was then called upon to light a resident goat in a full-scale reproduction of an 1100 B.C. Iron Age house in Canaan.

Fiber optics is always expected to cost much more than copper cabling. Whatever you look at—cable, terminations, or networking electronics—fiber costs more. So isn’t it obvious that fiber networks are more expensive than copper? Maybe not! There is more to consider before deciding this.

Up until a couple of years ago, one never thought about choosing the fiber in the fiber optic cable you bought. If you were buying cable for outside plant applications like telephone or CATV networks, you chose single-mode fiber.

It has the potential to be a classic cartoon: an electrician with a run of co-ax coming in on the left that needs to link to a run of fiber going out on the right. No amount of black tape will link the two. What is needed is a magic box.