Building Fiber Broadband Networks
Objectives: From this lesson you should learn:
- How one designs and builds a fiber broadband network
- What are the keys to a successful project
- How to get a fiber broadband project started
The earlier sections are designed to inform and educate everyone about
how fiber optics has changed every form of communications and enabled
broadband. This final section covers what the FOA has learned about how
to build a successful fiber project from involvement with many
successful projects.
Don’t expect this section to provide all the answers; nobody even knows
all the questions! Every fiber optic project is different and unique.
The communications needs, the geography of the network, local laws,
codes and regulations, and even the available technology, which is ever
changing, will all be unique to any specific project. Our hope is that
we provide sufficient background that you can understand your own
project well enough to manage it successfully.
FOA has many pages in the FOA Guide that can help explain the details.
You don't need to study all of them at once. If you know what's here,
you can refer to it when you need more in depth details.
What Is Involved In A Fiber Optic Project?
A fiber optic project begins with a need for communications and ends
with an installed fiber optic cable plant and an operating network that
fills that communications need. Between those two points are a number of
stages:
- Concept
- Selling the project to decision makers
- Getting financing
- Designing the project
- Installing the project
- Accepting the built network
- Operating and maintaining the network
Each of these stages breaks down into many smaller projects with one
thing in common - they require a thorough understanding of the project
and careful management to ensure the end result is what is expected.
This chapter is aimed to provide resources for the manager of the
project and the people building the project to allow them to have a
mutual understanding of what will be happening as the project moves from
concept to completion.
Getting Started
For most projects, the concept is usually simple – provide broadband to
the local population. Translating this concept into a scope of work
(SOW) document that describes the project takes the cooperative effort
of many contributors including some who are experienced in starting and
managing fiber optic projects.
What makes a successful fiber project?
When asked this question, we often respond with 4 words: financing, commitment, expertise and patience. Here's what we mean:
Financing
The story goes that someone asked Neil Armstrong what he was thinking
about while sitting on top of the rocket ready to launch Apollo 11 to
the moon. “Every part was made by the lowest bidder,” was his reply.
Fiber optic projects are not necessarily expensive. But like on most
other projects, it never pays to cut corners. Planning and running the
project properly is what saves money, not just trying to reduce the
project cost. Not all jobs should go to the lowest bidder, unless they
meet all the criteria for a qualified bidder. Likewise, one needs to
ensure that when a project starts, there are funds available to complete
the job properly, including some extra for unplanned changes,
modifications or cost overruns.
Commitment
Just like having sufficient finances to compete the project, one needs a
commitment to finish the job once it is started. Changes of management
or changes in governments often lead to reconsidering a project in
midstream. There is nothing wrong with making changes based on what
learns as the project progresses, but arbitrary changes may jeopardize
the project's completion or timetable, or even its usefulness.
If the project is under the auspices of a government entity, changes in
administration or management that causes changes in a project will
invariably make it more expensive and may jeopardize the success of the
entire project. Ideally, the personnel who propose, design and plan the
network should see it to completion.
Expertise
Fiber requires expertise and experience. It's obvious that the designers
and installers need to know what they are doing, but in reality, so
must the project managers. There are many instances of projects where
the managers signed off on the project when it was incomplete or
improperly installed. The only way to properly manage a project is to
understand every aspect of it well enough to know if it is being done
properly.
Anybody can become a consultant, but do they have relevant experience
and have their projects been successful? Are they tied to vendors or
lobbyists whose products they recommend? Landscape contractors do
not make good fiber installers, as one major company discovered, and
contractors with a record of puncturing water mains while directional
boring are likely to continue doing the same.
Planners, designers, contractors and installers should all be trained
and certified as well as being experienced with good references. That
holds doubly so for consultants. In many places, to be a consultant or
cabling contractor means little other than registering as a business and
advertising your services.
It’s amazing the problems we've seen with outside services, including
consultants who took contracts, spent time on a project, then told the
customer they could not help them with the project but kept the money.
We have heard and seen contractors doing shoddy installations, ruining
expensive fiber optic cable during installation or leaving jobs half
done but getting paid because the customer knew no better. One
contractor gave the customer 144 copies of the same test data as proof
they had completed the job. The manager must know better to prevent
problems like this.
The Fiber Optic Association was founded by people in the industry to
develop a competent workforce for fiber optics. In the next section we
will discuss the fiber optic workforce. FOA offers technical materials
and certifications for the workforce that builds and operates these
networks from design through installation and operation. See the Annex
for FOA Credentials.
Patience
From concept to acceptance, a typical fiber project can take 2-5 years,
depending on the size of the project. It is not just the time to install
fiber, it is the time needed to properly design it, create project
paperwork, get permits, buy components, hire contractors and then
properly install it. Proper workmanship takes time and is not
easily rushed. Saving time often means cutting corners and that is often
the cause of the problems encountered. Take your time, plan, design,
select, install, test and document your network properly.
And by the way, "future proofing" is a myth! Who would have known in
1990 how ubiquitous the Internet would be today? How reliant we could be
on smartphones other mobile devices? How many workers would be working
remotely or using videoconferencing for meetings? Technology moves too
fast and is too disruptive for anyone to make reliable predictions.
Plan for the future, but assume you will upgrade, change directions, etc. driven by new tech and changes in the world around us.
Read more about Project Management of fiber optic projects.
Understanding The Fiber Optic Workforce
With all our dependence on fiber optics, the personnel who design,
install and operate fiber optic networks have become essential workers.
In a labor market where two job openings exist for every worker seeking
employment, that brings up a very big question:
Where do we find the workers who will build these fiber optic networks?
When the first fiber optic networks were built over 40 years ago, Ph.Ds.
from Bell Labs were in the field doing the installations. During the
1980s and 90s it was techs experienced in installing telecom copper
cables who were taught fiber optics by their employers, the telephone
companies.
Today, the fiber technician can be practically anybody: electricians, IT
and security techs, cable guys, soldiers and sailors, and lots of
people who learned in a school or changed careers to become fiber techs.
They may work for a communications or other high tech company, a city
or government agency, a security company, a bank or just about any other
commercial organization. Or they may be independent contractors who
move from job to job.
We're now a couple of generations of workers into fiber optics.
Practically everybody from the beginning has retired, including many of
those who learned the trade working for traditional telephone companies.
Today's fiber tech may have started in some role in communications and
learned fiber optics because their work required it. They may have taken
a class to learn the basic knowledge and skills, then honed their
skills with OJT – on-the-job-training. Or maybe they just learned on
their own as needed.
Fiber optic installation is not “rocket science,” it’s a trade that can
be learned in a “boot camp” and perfected by OJT – on-the-job-training –
or as part of an apprenticeship program. It does not require a college
degree, just some basic knowledge, skills and abilities – what the FOA
calls the “KSAs.”
What is a fiber optic tech?
The fiber optic tech is not just one type of worker. They are the
designers of the fiber optic network who convert communications needs
into plans for the fiber optic network that gets built. They are the
field techs who install cable, splice and test it, to prepare it for
use. They are the techs who install communications equipment and
maintain it. They are the techs who operate the network and, if
necessary, repair it when damaged.
Each of these types of workers should have a basic knowledge of fiber
optics and the specialized skills related to their job function. The
best way to judge their qualifications is to look at their
certifications such as the FOA CFOT and experience.
The Role Of The Fiber Optic Association
And these workers should be certified. Certification shows they have the
knowledge, skills and abilities needed to do their work properly. The
Fiber Optic Association Is the oldest and largest certifying body in
fiber optics, certifying more than 100,000 fiber optic techs with over
150,000 certifications.
The Fiber Optic Association (FOA),
the non-profit international professional association of fiber optics,
was founded in 1995 by the industry to develop the skilled workforce
needed by the industry. The FOA charter is to “promote professionalism
in fiber optics through education, certification and standards.”
The FOA is acutely aware of the shortage of qualified fiber optic
technicians to build the fiber optic networks being planned today. FOA
sets the standards for training, approves the training organizations and
certifies the workers. Training is done by schools like technical high
schools and colleges, professional trainers and manufacturers. Today,
FOA has over 135 affiliated schools in the US, more than 200 worldwide,
and is adding more all the time. FOA Approved Schools.
More on Broadband
Introduction To Fiber Broadband
Fiber Broadband Jargon
Networks And Communications Technology
Fiber Optic Telecommunications
Fiber Optics For Wireless Networks
FTTH and Fiber To The Home Architecture
Data Communications Networks
The Internet And Data Centers
Fiber Makes It Smart
Building Fiber Broadband Networks + Project Planning And Management
FOA FTTH And Fiber Broadband Resources
The Fiber Optic Association Guide To Fiber Broadband
FOA's textbook on fiber broadband.
Paperback ($12.95) and Kindle ($9.95) versions available from Amazon or most booksellers. Kindle version is in color!
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