An area of particular speciality, NBC have installed a multitude of fibre optic cable networks over many years in numerous diverse locations including, but not limited to: television studios, hotels, hospitals, sports venues, department stores, schools and colleges. Such projects have varied considerably from straightforward inter-cabinet links and backbones to complex networks, often within large campus sites requiring civil engineering work, but also in large single buildings, sometimes listed.
These installations have typically supported data networks, CCTV and distributed telephone systems.
Due to the bandwidth capabilities, fibre optic cables are normally used for inter-building links or for connecting cabinets back to the main communications facility or server room. As a result, fibre optic cables are often installed in relatively hostile conditions, such as underground ducts or gantries between buildings, in undercrofts or basement service areas, even surface-fixed on the outside of buildings. Because of this, they are often more vulnerable to damage from both vandalism and rodents, to help counteract which we can also offer CST (corrugated steel tape) and SWA (steel-wire armoured) fibre optic cables, which are specially ‘ruggedised’ to help deal with these conditions.
Trying to physically find any damage on a fibre optic cable is a near impossible task, especially on a long route, but this is made substantially easier with the use of an Optical Time Domain Reflector (OTDR) which works by sending pulses of light down one of the fibre optic cores (or each, in turn) and producing a trace of the fibre run. The trained operative can then ascertain the distance from the OTDR to the damage and a physical search can then commence within a much more localised area.
More often than not, because the need to use an OTDR is typically dictated by the need to locate and resolve a problem with a fibre, most situations are service-affecting and the need to localise, identify and fix the issue for the customer is paramount and something we always strive to achieve as swiftly as possible.
