The Strength of Quality

The importance of building reliable fibre optic networks to our homes in a mobile connected world.

Ramblings by Paul Rizzardi in his personal quest for an ‘always connected’ world.

Why we need to consider reliable, effective fixed connections in a world dominated by mobile connectivity.

FTTx - The early years

Always Connected 1 - The flattening of the world from a small business viewpoint

Always Connected 2 - The need for connected ‘stuff’

Always Connected 3 - More stuff....in clouds

The Relevance of Quality

The Strength of Quality

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FTTX - The early years

CATV is dead! Long live FTTx!

So you think FTTx is relatively new? Let’s go straight back to the early 1990s when CATV was the new thing and networks were being thrown into the ground by a multitude of suppliers. How many people realise that back then, these networks were essentially FTTc (Fibre to the Curb). Street cabinets popped up all across the land and these primary and secondary nodes were all fibre fed. It was only the ‘last mile’ or generally the last 50 metres or so that saw the copper connection into the home or small business premises. Reliability as a factor? Well back then our world, and the way that we communicated was different to what we are getting used to now. Mobile (cell) phones were only starting to turn digital and the Internet was still in its romper suit. The CATV networks were principally installed to bring a plethora of additional TV stations into the home, with the telephone line ‘siamesed’ onto the TV feed cable. The aim and the rapidity at which the connections were rolled out was undeniably a route to earning a fast buck. Reliability concerns may have been based around the risk factor of the connection going down during the FA cup final. When it came to that last mile connection in particular, corners were often cut in order to meet the daily quota of technicians that would turn up at your home, drill in hand.

Back then, I was involved with the fibre side of the business, managing a team of technicians installing fibre lines into small business premises and maintaining the network to the street nodes. During the migration to SDH, it was me that noticed that in the rush to build the fibre rings outwards from the head-end in two directions at once, that the loops hadn’t been closed to bring the fibre path back on the other side of the ring. The nodes were pretty well working on a PDH basis. Enter man with shovel; out goes service to hundreds of homes. So, we fixed that and freed up half the network at the same time. Network reliability increased by a factor of 1!

Always Connected 1The flattening of the world from a small business

viewpoint

The 30 second commuteWhat? Was Galileo wrong....., or was it Aristotle? Nothing to do with that. I’m talking about the emergence of Internet based home enterprise. In the great 2006 book ‘The World is Flat’, Thomas L. Friedman sets out how the true grasping of the use of broadband connectivity to our houses opened up a whole new playing field, whereby we were no longer tied to mainframe computers in Betonglas Tower, EC1. Software developers popping up in the Ukraine, website building in students’ bedrooms or entrepreneurial E-bay sellers sat in the kitchen; all of this was becoming the norm, or opening up another meaning of ‘working from home’. Err, then there was the other sort of working from home, whereby most of the time you were based in Betonglas Tower (EC1), but sometimes you worked from home. Either way, you’ll never think about the hours that you tapped away on the monster spreadsheet of all mother of spreadsheets; but that time the network went down whilst you made your 7th coffee of the day, is lodged in your mind for all eternity.

Any idea of where I’m going with this yet?

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Always Connected 2The need for connected ‘stuff’

Digital content now, and don’t let it stop

The aforementioned book was only written in 2006, but reading it now it can already appear dated, because it was written before the advent of the iThing. iPads, iPhones, Blackberries - it seems almost unimaginable to not be able to instantaneously see the latest posted funny cat video on Fakebook. At the time of writing, my wife was about to head off to Sri Lanka to do some teaching. Even though the accommodation should have wi-fi, she wanted to know how she should buy a SIM card that will guarantee her a permanent data connection. So yes, you may be picking up your latest email over the mobile network on your smartphone, but I can bet that your tablet device or too-hot-to-actually-put-on-your-lap notebook is connected to your home network over wi-fi. We haven’t even mentioned your desktop computer, your TV streaming device, Eggspox gaming or your NAS drive. So these are most likely to be hardwired back -via your router - to ISP Hosting House, whether it’s by xDSL, CATV or wait for it....FTTH.

The more that we get used to being connected, we actually show symptoms of panic if we are not. If we go back to our CATV days once again, loss of service may not have been quite so critical; just an inconvenience, but we are now expecting to have a permanent umbilical to the digitised world.

Are you starting to see where I’m coming from?

Always Connected 3More stuff....in clouds

Everything, all over the place

Who would have thought even 10 years ago that both the down-pricing of digital storage and the up-speeding of Internet connections would realistically allow us to store content offline. Hah! do you remember the days when we used to carry little USB sticks around with us on our key-rings and such like? Dropbox and iCloud - amongst others - have almost become household names. Not only do they offer storage of our important documents, but they permit access from any platform, wherever we are; be it at home on the train on our tablet or even from our computer at work. We already have a lot of other applications piggy-backing off of the clouds, from password synchronisation to photo sharing, from music everywhere to website hosting.

And the next stage? We’re promised that we may all get used to actual applications in the cloud. If this isn’t going almost full circle from those days of the mainframe computer and dumb terminals, then what is? The reality is that we might one day pay to use specific online applications in a way that we already pay for premium live sport broadcasts on our TVs.

Ah! Now we get it.

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The Relevance of Quality

Service LevelsSo, the point that I’m trying to make is one that the quality of service and the reliability of our Internet connections are becoming more and more vital, as we get to depend on all of these services available to us. Connections into large companies will usually have a Service Level Agreement that forces the provider to respond to faults on the line within a fixed timeframe - often 1 hour to respond and 4 hours to complete a repair. Critical customers such as financial institutions will further insure themselves by using more than one service provider. So what of the home user? Repair and response times to downed lines may only be best efforts with an offer of compensation for extended periods of outage time. But how does a home service provider know the criticality of what the line is being used for? With the advent of so many new uses over our Internet pipes, the game play could be changing. Who are the providers to judge anymore as to “Oh, it’s only an inconvenience”. Remember that CATV connection?

Here’s irony. As I was writing this page, listening to the most popular UK radio station, someone emailed in - ‘Always carry a piece of fibre optic cable in your pocket. If you ever get lost in the UK, bury the piece of cable in the ground next to you and wait; it won’t be long before someone arrives to dig it up and you can ask them for directions’.

Mmm. Need to give it some thought?

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The Strength of Quality

Our PartI’m thinking that if you have read this far, you are likely to be employed in, or related to the telecommunications industry. So before we look at what part we can all play, just think about what I have covered above and put yourself in the position of a home user, thinking about what loss of service could potentially mean. Perhaps you are even working from home as you read this, logged onto your company’s server. My father was a great advocate for doing a job right “Preparation is the most important part”, he would say, but I think that taking five years to decorate one room was pushing it a bit. He was also insistent on routine maintenance. I think he spent more time taking his perfectly working car to bits to clean and service parts, than he actually spent driving it. Prevention however, really was better than a cure; I don’t recall my father’s old Morris Minor ever breaking down.

So how does all of this apply to quality of fibre optic networks? As with many other forms of construction, we have planning and design, installation & testing, quality control and then ongoing maintenance. I don’t want to discuss cost constraints, although of course this can have a bearing on the whole lifecycle. A little more detail will follow, but at a very high level;

✴ Planning - The strategy around the best method of resilience of the network to be installed.✴ Design - Looking at the best options from both the materials and installation method specifications.✴ Installation & testing - Adhering to both manufacturers installation instructions and company engineering

directives.

✴ Quality control - So often missed, but potentially so critical. To be rigidly adopted, both during

installation, but certainly as part of the testing and acceptance.

✴ Maintenance - Sticking to manufacturers recommendations and finding a good balance of inspections on

what essentially should be maintenance free part of the telecommunications network.

Our part. Yes that includes you.

The Strength of Quality

Food for Thought - StartersSo, a little more brain dumping on each of these.

Planning✴ Can a strategy be applied that can help lower the risk of downtime of the network?

✴ Can that busy street used by many other utilities, or network providers be avoided?

✴ Are conventional installation methods of installation the best, or could you look at alternatives like using

sewers?

✴ Are there any switching options that could be in place to alleviate damage to key sections of the

network?

Design✴ What is the core design technologies that will be applied to the cable routing; conventional cable in duct,

sub-duct, micro-duct, mini-cabling, blown fibre, etc?

✴ Is any of the routing in hazardous environments on in areas prone to damage from other utilities,

vandalism, natural agents?

✴ For cable entries to buildings; is there a proper service entry in place, is it a difficult building to reach or

enter?

✴ For internal cabling - in particular shared dwellings/apartments - is there a riser that will protect the

majority of the routing or should a secure trunking arrangement be put in to reach each floor?

The Strength of Quality

Food for Thought - MainsInstallation & Testing✴ Always observe and adhere to manufacturers installation instructions and recommendations, especially

in critical, vulnerable areas, such as; external splice closures, termination panels and building entries.

✴ Stick to set testing specifications paying particular attention to anything that looks like it could be a

macro-bend. You can bet that any suspicious bend is not likely to improve over time, especially if there is

any wide climatic interaction.

✴ Install it ‘right first time’, but note any areas that could not be installed to exact specification due to

bespoke requirements, or special engineering requirements, so that they can be monitored.

Quality Control✴ Absolutely critical. If you need the network to be reliable, quality is paramount. Check all of the

accessible installation.

✴ If it has not been built to specification, correct it now. A small delay to initial service handover may

damage your company’s reputation less than a connection that is constantly failing.

✴ Build it as if it is for yourself. You wouldn’t expect, or accept work carried out on your home if it was sub-

standard, would you?

✴ Record all of the build information NOW! During a fault, you want to know where everything is and how it

is routed, to speed required fault locating and repairing.

The Strength of Quality

Food for Thought - Dessert

Maintenance✴ Is their any manufacturers recommended maintenance? Almost all elements of fibre optic installation

require none, but you must consider the next point.

✴ Visual inspections to be carried out on a regular basis. This may only be yearly, but it must be

scheduled. The frequency may be higher for vulnerable installations.

✴ Visual inspections must include checks of a quantity of chambers (pits) along cable routes; in particular

‘busy’ junction chambers.

✴ Joints, termination frames and customer termination points can be vulnerable areas and should be

inspected, but without too much interference that could end up actually causing faults.

✴Check patch-cord management and supporting infrastructure.

✴For equipment rooms; keep them clean, ensure doors are kept shut and use precautionary devices like

dust mats and air filters.

Good, but could be even better

The Strength of Quality

To SummariseSo what does all this mean? The fact is, if we build our fibre optic networks correctly and ensure that quality has been adhered to throughout all processes, nothing should ever go wrong with them. The physical network layer is passive, right? The network could be in the ground - or overhead - for years without ever needing attention, or ever dropping service. Yes there will always be the inevitable road digger or natural catastrophe that could take it out, but even some of the risk of those factors can be alleviated. Finance can affect all stages from design through to maintenance, but if we do things right and don’t cut corners with either materials or installation principles, in the long run a bit more time spent through the cycle is likely to save money over the time of ownership.

Think about that downtime once again and how it could affect people. Think about when you have been engaged in a mobile phone call whilst you have been on the move - like in a car or train - and you lose your signal. Think about the time that you did lose your Internet connection at home - if it has happened to you - and how you may have felt ‘cut off’ from the world.

Build that network and that customer connection as though your life depends on it; who knows, maybe

one day it will.

This presentation is solely the thoughts of Paul Rizzardi as a reflection of years of observations whilst working in the fibre optic arena. It is not intended to be connected to either his present or any past employer, apart from where any references have been made. Paul Rizzardi has been working with the installation of fibre optics since 1982, covering installation of trunk cables, metro networks, sub-sea cables, building entries, bespoke customer networks, testing, maintenance and project management.

Many thanks to all who have provided, or allowed use of photos for this presentation including; Jim Hayes of the Fiber Optic Association www.thefoa.org , Steve Kenward, Mike Dixon and Neill Mackay. The photos supplied should not be associated in any way with current or past employers of these people.

Paul Rizzardi. August 2013