Hi Jorj, it's certainly not cheap, but the economics are improving, as is the eye-sore aspect. Check the following from the Canarie news list:
No more tearing up of streets to install optical fiber
From: CAnet-3-NEWS
Date: Tue Apr 18 2000 - 16:39:48 EDT
[There are some exciting new technology developments that might dramatically reduce the cost of installing fiber within cities by installing fiber in sewers or new "in the groove" technology. The question is whether these technologies will work in frost damaging roads? Even with these new technologies, fiber on poles is still the cheapest alternative - BillStArnaud]
siemens.com
(unfortunately this link no linger exists)
alcatel.com
Gone are the days when installing a fiber-optic network meant disrupting traffic to rip up the street. With Siemens new Micro Cabling Systems, a network can be installed in a groove just 8 cm below the surface. That saves time, money and aggravation.
Seven o'clock a.m. on a busy city street: construction workers start up their jackhammers and set to work ripping up large sections of the sidewalk's asphalt surface. People living and working nearby look out of their windows and hope that the deafening noise will not last long, but the
drilling persists for hours. As if that were not bad enough, the subsequent digging and earth removal work will obstruct traffic on this street for days to come.
Until now, such scenes were unavoidable when it came to installing fiber optic cable networks, since conventional cables are buried at standard depths of between 60 and 80 cm below the sidewalk or bicycle path. Besides the disturbance to the environment, this method also means higher costs for network operators: in fact, it likely makes up the single largest cost in setting up a fiber optic network.
The problems are compounded by the fact that the routes available in downtown city areas, with their dense infrastructure of service cables, are often already at full capacity. In many cases, it is no longer possible to
accommodate further cables along the same routes, as these would make access to existing cables difficult, if not impossible. New network operators in particular are therefore faced with the problem of finding an alternative.
Siemens has now developed Micro Cabling Systems (MCS), which facilitates totally new procedures for laying cables.
The building block for Micro Cabling Systems is a pressure-resistant 5-mm copper tube which is insulated with a 1-mm thick polyethylene jacket. This small tube can carry up to 60 optical fibers whose optical properties conform to those of a conventional fiber optic cable with mono or multimode fibers.
The MCS is suitable both for laying networks in city areas and in campus cabling on large corporate sites. (Another interesting use: the conductivity of the tubes' copper jacket can be used to supply optoelectric converters
with electricity.)
The time required for a project is thus reduced to a minimum compared with conventional technologies: whereas laying a one km-long conventional fiber optic cable (including construction work) takes up to two weeks, a micro cable section of the same length can be installed in just one day. This has enormous economic and competitive benefits for network operators, as well as reducing both noise and traffic delays.
If the micro cable is to be laid directly into a road surface - for which it is robust enough - the appropriate groove is first cut with a circular flex saw and then expanded with a milling cutter to a width of 1 to 1.5 cm and a depth of 6 to 8 cm. As when opening new cable routes along the curbstone, standard road construction machinery is used (Fig. 3), enabling not only asphalt, but also cobblestones and concrete to be cut.
After laying and fixing the micro cable, the gap is filled with road bitumen to restore the road surface and also provide a lasting seal.
The depth of between 6 and 8 cm not only prevents damage to the micro cable if the top layer of the road is removed and re-laid during road resurfacing work, but also ensures that the road is not damaged in any way.
The new Micro Cabling Systems also include a corresponding cable closure that can be used both as a connecting and a branching closure.
>From the Alcatel web site ....
To dig or not to dig? That is the question. Many new telecom operators are coming to the same conclusion: digging is time-consuming and expensive. So they are negotiating rights of way through existing, non-telecom
infrastructure to deploy networks in record time.
Building telecom networks has always involved securing rights to run cables through public and private land, along railroads and so on. What’s new are those who are licensing rights to their infrastructure — electrical and
water utilities, gas companies, highway and waterway authorities — and those who are using them.
New operators are negotiating rights for both long distances — along energy and rail networks, highways, pipelines, tunnels, rivers and coastal water — and for shorter links through difficult-to-access urban environments (through rivers, sewer systems, subway networks and tunnels). Inner-city rights are particularly strategic because they lead to the end-user.
According to Henri Savary, an Alcatel senior project manager used to negotiating complex telecom projects, “Most alternative routes are used for access to inner cities, where it is very expensive to dig — if you manage to
get permits. These routes are one solution. They are especially used in densely populated areas, where telecom deregulation is attracting new operators.”
Along with gas companies, water pipeline owners are particularly concerned that their core operations not be compromised. Thanks to technology, these owners can safely allow third-party access to their infrastructure. “We have
done pioneer work in gas and water pipelines,” pointed out Nothofer. “We developed a whole system, including the installation method and fittings for the cable in- and outlets.” Alcatel is conducting a number of pilot projects
in several German cities.
Alcatel has pioneered techniques for laying fiber along highway stopping lanes to create instant, low-cost networks, including “Fiber in the groove.” Explained Nothofer, “A large machine digs a groove, lays the cable, buries it and seals the groove, all in one step. Up to 12 kilometers of cable can be laid in one day using this method, with minimal traffic disturbance and
no waste to remove.” This method costs less than a quarter of traditional cable-laying.
French highway operator SANEF has already installed about 2,000 kilometers along its network in this way. And last March, operator Les Autoroutes du Sud de la France awarded Alcatel a EURO 61 million contract to outfit its existing highways, as well as those under construction, with a turnkey fiber-optic telecom network. |
