Colchester’s UK Dark Fibre Network Benefits from New High Density Cable
The Colchester Borough Council‘s the latest multi-million pound project to build a new Darkish Fibre network throughout the Essex town (listed here) seems to have also been one of the very first destinations in the United kingdom to deploy the Prysmian Group’s hottest Sirocco Hd cable, which can in shape 552 fibres into a diameter of just 8.2mm.
Higher density microduct cables are nothing at all new, but each and every number of years’ any person finds a way to make them even smaller sized, lighter and far more flexible or durable. Not so extended in the past we had been talking about Fujikura’s SpiderWeb Ribbon (SWR) cable, which could match 288 fibres into a cable diameter of 11.7mm – growing up to 1728 fibres into 22.1mm.
According to Colm Coyle, MD of Rio IT and designer of the set up, the firm essential to locate a cable that could be inserted into the current duct method (this had initially been designed to guidance CCTV cameras) and which would be moderately upcoming-proof. In small, they essential to squeeze all-around 500 specific fibres into a 16mm diameter duct (they basically only experienced 9-11mm of usable place inside the tube).
Colm states that Prysmian’s cable was the only one particular they could find for their certain position, and it is about a quarter of the weight of other cables of a similar ability. The operator specified 26 kilometres of 552 Sirocco High definition fibre cable for the project, supplied by Fusion Utilities, to be set up by Scotech in a ring all over the metropolis. The cable is produced up of 552 unique G657A2 fibres, with a fibre density of up to 10.5 fibres for every mm2.
The cable also makes use of Prysmian’s BendBright-A2 200µm single-manner (ITU-T G.657.A2) bend insensitive fibre technologies, letting it to keep adequate overall flexibility to be bent all over tight corners with no getting harmed. This is crucial mainly because the new cable had to be blown down the duct at a substantial more than enough air tension that it could make it close to 21 suitable angle bends.
The very first blow was 1200m – from the city corridor, around 8 bends, adopted by a few 1000m blows. The longest ‘directional blow’ of the full venture was 1650m, with the longest in general area size achieving 2170m, or above two kilometres. Fortunately, the installation was done with small disruption to the neighborhood, with no street functions or loud maintenance currently being demanded.
Adrian Austin, Uk Product sales Supervisor for Telecom at Prysmian Group United kingdom, claimed:
“This was a considerable job for Prysmian as it essential the use of a manufacturer-new solution, which was productively put in with no troubles. Even more to this, Colchester is now just the 2nd area in the United kingdom to have this procedure installed, and Colchester Metropolis Council, who commissioned the venture, is delighted.”
We really do not normally produce significantly about the optical fibre cables by themselves, preferring as an alternative to aim on the provider shipped, network coverage and networking machines included at the ONT or OLT. But this just one was interesting and in-depth more than enough to be deserving of a point out.
The challenge was completed in December 2021 and has helped to sort some of the foundation for VXFIBER‘s (inc. subsidiary LilaConnect) ongoing challenge to rollout a new gigabit-capable Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) broadband ISP network throughout the town (right here).
As a side take note, the Prysmian Team has claimed that their most up-to-date Sirocco High definition cable variant can match 576 fibres into a diameter of 9.5mm, offering a fibre density of 8.1 fibres per mm2.
