Overview

The topics of this chapter range from the sea bed to the home, yet one theme is retained; all of these rules relate to how cables are run, protected, and maintained. The first telecom fiber cable was not lit until April 22, 1977 (between Long Beach and Artesia), and it wasn't until 1988 that the TAT-8 crossed the Atlantic, yielding 40,000 good telephone connections (and over 1000 times provided by the first copper cable). ^[1]Today, for example, an advanced fiber transmitting 184 wavelength channels at 40 gigabits per second can carry more than 90 million phone conversations (enough to satisfy several teenagers).

One of the topics addressed herein is the management of cables in which large numbers of fibers are protected. Clearly, this is a critical topic in these days of constant demand for increased bandwidth, regardless of application. We also include the issue of allowing the field worker to recognize different fibers in these dense cables by use of color. Similarly, a number of rules relate to the problem of pulling cables through ducts and the size of the cables that can be accommodated. With increasing fiber density a common trend, we have included a number of rules that relate to this topic, including flat and tube-like installations.

The above topics lead directly to a set of rules related to the problems encountered when running large numbers of cables in underground conduits, particularly with respect to the potential for the collapse of the conduit. New conduit materials...