Project Skills Solutions provides fibre optic cabling services supporting our client’s existing fibre networks. Identifying and proving dark fibre routes at multiple sites to provide new clients with new trunk network connections.
Fibre Optic Cable Testing
Proving fibre optic cable routes on legacy networks requires fibre skills and a range of equipment. Often due to the age of the networks cable routes and information is very limited. So firstly the engineers have to locate dark fibres in pits which are packed with cables and joints. Once the dark fibre has been located then they have to be tested against a network drawing showing the next pit the other end of the cable is located. This can be proved using an LSPM to light up the fibre. The cables can sometimes be many kilometres long so an OTDR is used at 1330/1550/1625nm to test the length of the dark fibre against the length shown on the network drawing.
This often results in the drawing or the cable information being wrong which then requires the experience of our fibre engineers to investigate and find a route.
Fibre Optic Cable Splicing
Once the numerous parts of the route have been proven then the fibre cores will be required to be fusion spliced in multiple pit locations and fibre joints to provide a route. In order to allow us to get our vehicles into a position to bring in the fibre joint inside the vehicle then a safe work site has to be set up. Often these works require traffic management to be set up involving footpath closures with signing lighting and guarding.
Furthermore, this work can be required to be carried out at night to limit the effects of these closures. So our fibre optic engineers are required to work out of hours as required at nights and weekends.
