To date, the FTTx market in the UK has largely been hampered by the cost and complexity of rolling out high-speed fibre networks, particularly around the ‘last drop’: in other words, the final connection between the network and the consumer. Lack of skilled labour required, plus the sheer amount of time involved in deploying network connections and fibre optic cable terminations has made it difficult for network installers to meet project deadlines, while at the same time, risking unreliable network performance in the future.
However, that is changing fast and there are already a number of innovations that have taken place over the past couple of years. Some of these are already proving to be game-chan gers in other parts of the world. For instance, rapid deployment of high speed broadband in MDUs in the USA, or a new approach to splicing that means Asian operators are terminating fibre cabling in volumes that would have been possible to imagine five years ago. Plus, these new innovations are removing the need to depend on highly skilled fibre optic engineers, opening up the installation market to a far wider potential audience, such as traditional copper cabling, electrical or AV installers.
In this new white paper, 3M covers some of installation challenges that have hampered FTTx roll-out, then looks at how these can be overcome, including five ‘best practice’ steps to adopt. Finally, 3M provides an overview of some of its own innovations in this area and which are already being deployed worldwide.
