While taking my morning walk recently, I saw a tech splicing fiber. He had opened an existing fiber closure and was splicing fibers in one of the splice trays. I wanted to ask him about his work, but he was in a bucket truck about 20 feet off the ground. I just took photos and continued my walk, but it got me thinking.

With so much of the fiber optic cable plant being aerial, the bucket truck must be one of the most important and valuable—perhaps even indispensable—tools for the fiber tech. And certainly the most expensive.

Every craftsman or technician must have the tools necessary for their work. For the fiber tech, it would begin with basic hand tools, such as cable and fiber stripping tools. Many techs working on outside plant (OSP) cable will also have special tools made for midspan entry or certain types of cables. I know fiber techs all have their favorite types and brands of tools.

The fiber tech’s tool belt

A fusion splicer is imperative for most of today’s installations. OSP techs are always fusion-splicing fiber joints when installing cables, concatenating cables for long runs or connecting splits or drop cables. With the conversion to fusion splice-on connectors, practically every tech needs a fusion splicer for termination. Some techs today need splicers for ribbon cables, as they have become more common. Techs often have very strong opinions about the brand of splicer they use, based on what machine they learned on, use the most or have found gives them the best and quickest results.

Besides the splicer, the fiber cleaver is also an important tool. No matter how good the machine is, the quality and consistency of the splices it makes will depend on the caliber of the fiber cleave. Both require handling with care and periodic maintenance.

Don’t forget to test

Test equipment is another necessary tool. After the cable plant installation is completed, it requires testing to ensure proper installation and troubleshooting if necessary.

Every fiber tech needs a connector-­inspection microscope to verify that each connector is clean and scratch-free before making connections. Installation techs today often use video microscopes that can automatically evaluate the connector condition and even save a photo of it for documentation. To accompany the microscope, a cleaning kit is also required. New fiber cleaning solutions are much more effective than the alcohol and wipes used in the past.

A visual fault locator is also important. This visible laser injects light into a fiber to trace the fiber or find bends, breaks or bad connectors. Modern ones are the size of a laser pointer and quite inexpensive. When my company introduced the first portable visual fault locators almost 40 years ago, they were the size of a suitcase and cost $3,500 (over $10,000 today)!

To each tech their own

Testing the loss of every fiber in the cable plant is required, and here we find some difference of opinion. Some techs use a light source and power meter (LSPM) to measure insertion loss, while others swear by their optical time-domain reflectometer (OTDR). Until recently, standards required LSPM insertion loss testing, but some standards are now allowing OTDR testing instead. Not everybody or standard agrees, so the tech often needs both instruments to complete testing of the cable plant. Modern test instruments do offer one very big time-­saving feature: they record test data and can format reports for documentation.

So just how important is a bucket truck to the fiber optic tech? While many cities and suburbs no longer allow aerial cable, currently, many others still have it. Even in Santa Monica, Calif., where I live, underground cables may run down major streets, but most homes and apartments are connected by aerial cables running down secondary streets and alleys.

Maybe it’s not too far-fetched to conclude that a bucket truck is one of, if not the most, important tools a fiber tech needs, and one they must learn how to use effectively and safely.

jim hayes