Aerial Fiber Installs?

[calvinj]

I don't know how many of you guys deal with your own Fiber installations or have had some 3rd party come in and install fiber for you, but we are looking at another potential building next year. If the deal goes through we will need to connect it up to our main building with the core switches gear. This building is only maybe 6ish blocks away.

We could probably put in our own fiber in the ground again that far (small town and the city is cool enough with it), but in driving around looking at possible paths this fiber could take we are noticing that there are enough telephone / electrical poles around that we could easily have aerial fiber ran from building to building.


Anybody done this or had to deal with this? What came of it? Expensive as hell?

 

[Macco]

We ran some as my last job to get fiber to a cell tower that was on the very edge of town. Overall the installation was easy, took us about a day to get the fiber hung. Luckly we already had the hardware on the polls that cut down on time a little bit.

Contracting it out I'd assume cost would be cheaper as there's no need for a lawn plow, boring machine, or trencher - just a couple lift trucks.

Also saves on maintenance for the most part. No need to worry about hiring out someone to do the One Call locates or worry about backhoe fade. Storms can be a bit troublesome sadly but in my experience it's a nice trade off for not having to worry about locates and digging.

 

[whizbang]

When we expanded our fiber network several years ago we looked into aerial for one section but determined it was more beneficial to bury as the owners of the poles wanted us to lease the use of the poles.

 

[RocketTech]

I'm part of a project that is looking into exactly this sort of thing community-wide. We're working with another firm that is providing the expertise and work. In a nutshell, underground is much more expensive, but much less susceptible to environmental influences. Overhead is cheaper, but susceptible to downed branches. Our people said the jackets are pretty strong and wind, ice, etc aren't that much of an issue. Tornados and tree limbs would be the items to watch for. The city owns the poles and are willing to deal, so YMMV.

 

[etothe3ric]

Both aerial and underground have their tradeoffs. After working in a NOC for a fiber company, one thing to be aware of for underground is it is susceptible to rats chewing through the fibers. On the Pole most of the damage done to fiber is due to Squirrels and not weather damage. It is also much easier/faster to replace fiber on pole that in underground conduit.