17 ms·

There are massively important fiber lines being hung from a utility pole?

walrus01 8y ago
It's more common than you think, a lot of long distance links between cities are a varied combination of aerial, direct buried trenched armored fiber, underground fiber in ducts. There are also a lot of long-distance links carrying DWDM traffic that are >95% aerial, not on poles that can get hit by trucks, with singlemode fiber inside high voltage AC transmission lines (https://3ee2108sdg.files.wordpress.com/2014/07/cropped-2014071011044635.jpg https://3ee2108sdg.files.wordpress.com/2014/07/cropped-20140...).
- patejam 8y ago
  Yeah I understand aerial lines carried by those large towers shown in that image, but utility poles that can get hit by trucks seems problematic. Partly for accidental incidents like a truck crash, but also partly because of how easily it can become an attack vector. I guess the plus side is that utility pole lines are probably the easiest to fix when cut.
  - walrus01 8y ago
    Aerial fiber (ADSS or lashed to strand) is like 1/15th of the cost to build per km compared to underground, 40 inch buried trenched. A lot of the fiber built during the dotcom 1.0 boom with VC money was trenched along railways or pipeline right of ways.
AngryData 8y ago
I do fiber runs and whenever possible it is strung up on poles. It is far faster and easier than doing underground cabling because there are no utilities or gas lines or what have you to possibly hit. More of the stuff put down 15 years ago was put underground but a lot of it now is just lashed around current telephone lines.
- patejam 8y ago
  Yeah and for last mile lines it makes complete sense, no problems there. It just seems crazy that a utility pole holds a massively important link between two cities. But I guess that's just how it is.
  - anonymous5133 8y ago
    Yeah seems crazy but not crazy since traffic can always be rerouted and once the line is cut you immediately know its out. I think the bigger issue is that people actually experienced an interruption of service.
  - grigjd3 8y ago
    Much easier and faster to repair. The key to keep in mind is not if a break happens but average downtime over the year.

It's more common than you think, a lot of long distance links between cities are a varied combination of aerial, direct buried trenched armored fiber, underground fiber in ducts. There are also a lot of long-distance links carrying DWDM traffic that are >95% aerial, not on poles that can get hit by trucks, with singlemode fiber inside high voltage AC transmission lines (https://3ee2108sdg.files.wordpress.com/2014/07/cropped-2014071011044635.jpg https://3ee2108sdg.files.wordpress.com/2014/07/cropped-20140...).

patejam 8y ago
Yeah I understand aerial lines carried by those large towers shown in that image, but utility poles that can get hit by trucks seems problematic. Partly for accidental incidents like a truck crash, but also partly because of how easily it can become an attack vector. I guess the plus side is that utility pole lines are probably the easiest to fix when cut.
- walrus01 8y ago
  Aerial fiber (ADSS or lashed to strand) is like 1/15th of the cost to build per km compared to underground, 40 inch buried trenched. A lot of the fiber built during the dotcom 1.0 boom with VC money was trenched along railways or pipeline right of ways.

AngryData 8y ago

I do fiber runs and whenever possible it is strung up on poles. It is far faster and easier than doing underground cabling because there are no utilities or gas lines or what have you to possibly hit. More of the stuff put down 15 years ago was put underground but a lot of it now is just lashed around current telephone lines.

patejam 8y ago
Yeah and for last mile lines it makes complete sense, no problems there. It just seems crazy that a utility pole holds a massively important link between two cities. But I guess that's just how it is.
- anonymous5133 8y ago
  Yeah seems crazy but not crazy since traffic can always be rerouted and once the line is cut you immediately know its out. I think the bigger issue is that people actually experienced an interruption of service.
- grigjd3 8y ago
  Much easier and faster to repair. The key to keep in mind is not if a break happens but average downtime over the year.