Tuesday, December 15, 2015

Digging deep: the arrival of fibre optics



I was rudely awakened at 7 am some days ago. It turned out the works for laying the new optical fibre glass cables had started and my street had been cordoned off. Men in high vis jackets  were digging up the pavement assisted by a little digger that lifted the paving stones and concrete tiles. Then a large reel was brought in with lengths of orange cable on it. The work took them two days and they have now moved on to a street just around the corner...



Pedestrian were directed to the pavement on the other side of the street (left) as the pavement had been lifted for digging a trench. In the middle of the street a connective trench was dug between both sides of the street. The result was a tiny linear dune of sand on the curb, the spoils of digging the trench for the fibre optic cables.



A large reel on a cart held the cable (left). As the cart was pulled forth the cables were laid down along the trench. This trench was about 2 feet deep. The cables are laid at the bottom and it is than back-filled with sand (middle).You can clearly see a house connection sticking out. Finally the pavement was resurfaced by levelling the sand and placing the concrete pavement slabs back and stabilising them with a vibratory plate that presses the surface. More sand was swiped between the joints to add more stability, thus creating a half-open pavement that lets rain water permeate -to some extent- into the ground.

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