Zero tolerance and passive network infrastructures

Draka’s Peter Ludin explains why failure is not an option for upcoming generations of high-speed broadband networks.

“Innovative infrastructure solutions combined with turnkey approaches for reducing total cost of ownership are going hand in hand to exceed expectations for passive network structures”

Next generation internet is now intertwined with our quality of life. Economic stability, critical business information, super definition HD and 3D multimedia and an ingrained social media culture, are all part of our advanced societies. As the pressure on telecoms infrastructure increases, a quest for perfection is counterbalanced with a growing emphasis on reducing costs. Are the two compatible? Experience shows that innovative infrastructure solutions combined with turnkey approaches that reduce total cost of ownership doesn’t mean compromise for passive network structures.

Pyramid effect

Draka builds passive networks using advanced fibre optics. The business is illustrated as a pyramid-type layer model, one that applies to any telecom service. The passive network is the base of the pyramid, a critical part of the FTTH ecosystem. This ‘three-layer model’ separates fibre cables from the services that will pass through them. At the peak, the upper service layer includes services offered by content and market providers – radio, television, internet, mobile and fixed telephone. The middle ‘active layer’ has active equipment with small latency (time delay) and large bandwidth capability. It includes high tech equipment placed in the district exchange, sophisticated decoding boxes with the end user, as well as active management electronics.

The foundation of this pyramid, the bottom, passive layer, is our business. With over 20 years expertise in cable and network building projects, we have a proven methodology comprising fiber optic cables with network project design, planning, implementation and maintenance. This strategy aligns with the current concerns of network operators. The successful running of a market driven telecom network with a positive business case relies on the intelligent deployment and operation of a network. That’s why a systematic attitude to TCO is a requisite at the passive network layer level. As passive layer infrastructure expands to meet super broadband expansion, success means a constant focus on cost reduction and performance improvement. By managing Capex and Opex, we reduce the total cost of operations through the passive value chain.

Green field Energy City Qatar

The same engineering principles apply to a small 6000 network in the suburb of Rotterdam in the Netherlands as for a large-scale green field project such as the Energy City Qatar (ECQ) in the Middle East. A US$2.6 billion project, Draka is designing, engineering and implementing this advanced fibre optic network. ECQ is being built from the ground up, with fully integrated communications. Three separate networks support the energy hub in Qatar; IT and datacoms, a security CCTV network for external and internal building protection and an additional CCTV network for security and street surveillance.

Here, a TCO approach runs throughout, down to the basic rudiments of running fibre cables through ducts. Draka’s JetNetXS blows cables through micro-ducts with jets of air from a central point up to a kilometre away. It means 90 percent fewer manholes as well as fewer ducts. A team of three people can deploy cables up to eight kilometres a day, compared with traditional cable laying techniques that take twice the manpower for a quarter of the distance. At another level of value chain detail in Qatar, Draka’s in-house manufactured bend-insensitive fiber, BendBrightXS, contributes to optical network rollout, reducing energy consumption, material use and civil works.

At the end of the 1960s, the planners of the internet had the vision of designing a communications network that would never fail, even in the event of a major catastrophe. Fast forward some 40 years to our three-layer pyramid and we see that next generation networks are interdependent throughout each of the layers, but depend a long-term reliance over the life cycle of the passive network. Our approach is proving that by concentrating on innovative techniques that reduce TCO, a zero tolerance engineering attitude to passive network quality becomes a part of a construction culture. In Draka we name this ‘value Innovation’.

Peter Ludin, Vice President Sales EMEA for Draka Telecom Solutions, is an experienced executive in the European IT and telecoms industry, A Swiss National, he has a successful track record working with senior management in the telecommunications industry across Europe and the Middle East in a career which has spanned over 25 years.