P
Paul Hovnanian P.E.
- Jan 1, 1970
- 0
If anyone is familiar with telco construction practices, maybe they can
answer this one.
The local telco was installing a brand new overhead line from the
central office near me a few months ago. I stopped by and asked one of
the linemen what kind of cable they were stringing and he told me it was
thousand pair, 26 gauge (why they are still using such old technology is
a topic for another post). Later, I noticed that every few blocks, where
they had to tie into an underground lateral, they would route the cable
down a pole, into a splice cabinet and then back up the pole to continue
on. When transitioning from the overhead line to the riser on the pole,
they installed a splice box on the overhead line and then run a separate
section of cable down the riser, through some conduit and into the
cabinet. The downstream circuit goes back up the pole and into another
overhead splice. As far as I can tell, all of the pairs are spliced and
routed through the underground section. There are only two cables in and
out of the overhead splices, so I assume that they aren't splitting a
subset of the cable pairs out and running it to the cabinet.
My question is: Why can't the overhead cable be routed through the short
sections of conduit and into the splice cabinet? It appears that the
labor to make up each overhead splice is about a week for one person,
which is not cheap. Its probably more expensive to make the overhead
splices (working up a pole) than it is to work in a ground level cabinet
(not a vault, just a pedestal style cabinet).
answer this one.
The local telco was installing a brand new overhead line from the
central office near me a few months ago. I stopped by and asked one of
the linemen what kind of cable they were stringing and he told me it was
thousand pair, 26 gauge (why they are still using such old technology is
a topic for another post). Later, I noticed that every few blocks, where
they had to tie into an underground lateral, they would route the cable
down a pole, into a splice cabinet and then back up the pole to continue
on. When transitioning from the overhead line to the riser on the pole,
they installed a splice box on the overhead line and then run a separate
section of cable down the riser, through some conduit and into the
cabinet. The downstream circuit goes back up the pole and into another
overhead splice. As far as I can tell, all of the pairs are spliced and
routed through the underground section. There are only two cables in and
out of the overhead splices, so I assume that they aren't splitting a
subset of the cable pairs out and running it to the cabinet.
My question is: Why can't the overhead cable be routed through the short
sections of conduit and into the splice cabinet? It appears that the
labor to make up each overhead splice is about a week for one person,
which is not cheap. Its probably more expensive to make the overhead
splices (working up a pole) than it is to work in a ground level cabinet
(not a vault, just a pedestal style cabinet).