Fiber 1221 1920x920

Fiber Optics Installed By The Lowest Bidder

Dec. 1, 2021
Fiber Optics Has A Workforce Training Problem  Santa Monica was one of the first cities to invest in its own fiber network and today there are cables running down the […]

Fiber Optics Has A Workforce Training Problem 

Santa Monica was one of the first cities to invest in its own fiber network and today there are cables running down the streets with 100Gb/s circuits. The city connects all its services, as well as most traffic signals, surveillance cameras, and public WiFi, on its own fiber. It also leases fiber to commercial customers, many in the movie and tech industries.

Last year, there were installation crews everywhere installing new fiber, much of the work involving cabling for small cells. The city had set aside over 600 potential sites for small cells and issued more than 130 permits. 

When pulling cables in conduit, the rule is to limit bend radius to 20 times the cable diameter but this crew is pulling this 864-fiber cable, which has a minimum bend radius of about 20 inches, over a tiny pulley. The pulley being used is designed for ropes and is likely breaking many of the fibers in this 864-fiber cable.

Almost every day on my walks around my Santa Monica neighborhood, I would see crews doing underground and aerial installations. Whenever possible, I stopped, took photos, and talked to the crews. 

Most were subcontractors. The workers often did not know who the network owner was, they knew only the company they were contracted to for the project. Of these, the ones I was able to talk to universally said they learned fiber optics by OJT — On The Job training. The only hands-on training they typically received was on specific pieces of equipment by the manufacturers, fusion splicers being the one usually mentioned. 

While installing aerial cable by lashing over a large bundle of existing cables, this crew blocked the driving lane in the road and worked over parked cars.

In watching these installers, I saw much work being done that was good quality but also much that was unacceptable. Crews with bucket trucks moving down the driving lane of a street lashing cables over the top of parked cars. Some messengers they were working on already had as many as 10 cables lashed to them; many of those were held with cable ties. For months, storage loops containing hundreds of meters of cables hung on already loaded messenger wires. 

One day, a crew was pulling a high-fiber-count cable underground through a 5-inch diameter pulley when the minimum bend radius of the cable was 20 inches. This action likely was ruining the cable. The piles of cables in manholes and handholes I saw on this job site were amazing!

Santa Monica is not unique in the way it handles fiber builds. I’ve seen similar situations around the US myself and heard stories that go from bad to worse. Network owners have shared that their cables were cut by underground installation crews who were actually landscape contractors. A different landscape contractor sent photos of a fiber optic cable his workers had found laying on the ground in a park. It was not buried; instead, it had been covered by overgrown high grass. How did that landscaper discover the cable? They accidentally mowed over it and destroyed it. And yes, they were blamed for the damage.

Here is the same crew working above an expensive SUV.

"Installers"?

I can’t help but wonder who hired these people. Did they have resumes showing relevant experience? How about training and certification? Did the network owner have any clauses in the contract about the qualifications of workers, be they direct employees or subcontractors?

I’ve heard that the problem is that fewer companies are willing to provide training for employees. Yes, training can be expensive, but the damage untrained workers can do is substantial. That crew pulling the fiber optic cable over a too-small pulley probably caused more than $20,000 worth of damage in just a few minutes. A few days of simple training, or 30 minutes spent on an online course, could have prevented that expensive mistake.

This crew left hundreds of meters of cable hanging from this pole on the beach in Malibu, California, for over a year.

I suspect these contractors were hired because they were the lowest bidder. It’s akin to the famous quote attributed to several astronauts about "…sitting on a rocket with a million parts all built by the lowest bidder."

This situation must change. 

So, what should you, as a network owner, look for when you hire subcontractors, who may hire other subcontractors?

WHAT TO LOOK FOR:

1. Experience
2. References
3. Employee Training
4. Employee Certification by a recognized certifying body like FOA
5. Certification by manufacturer(s) for installing their products

What should you then require of contracted team members — even though they are NOT your employees? And how in the heck do you make that happen? 

A construction crew left about 1,000 feet (~300 meters) of cable in a neat Figure-8 hanging from a messenger wire in a suburban Los Angeles neighborhood for over 6 months before finishing the job.

HOW TO MAKE THAT HAPPEN:

Exactly the same thing! (See the 5 points listed in "What To Look For".)

And here is where the system often breaks down.

Our industry must rally together about how the importance of fiber training is for those aligned with our industry. Now that most everyone is more comfortable with online learning, there’s an alternative for those too busy (or cheap) to attend in-person classes. Even if telecom providers have no training budget, there is every reason to take advantage of online fiber learning. One option for learning is through Fiber U (https://fiberu.org). There are many free, online self-study programs available. 

As leaders in our industry, we must also try to educate manufacturers, contractors, and network owners and managers, about problems caused by incompetent subcontractors. Consider collaborating with an organization like ours to help establish Work to Cert and OJT programs in order to establish competency across the industry at large.

For more information, email [email protected], visit https://foa.org/ and follow us on LinkedIn.

Like this Article?

Subscribe to ISE magazine and start receiving your FREE monthly copy today!

About the Author

Jim Hayes | Fiber Optic Expert

Jim Hayes is the Fiber Optic Expert columnist for ISE Magazine. He is a lifelong techie who has been involved in the fiber optic industry since the late 1970s. He founded one of the world's first fiber optic test equipment companies, FOTEC, which was acquired by Fluke in 2000, and he was a co-founder of the Fiber Optic Association (FOA), the international professional society of fiber optics, in 1995.

Jim is a writer and trainer and the President of FOA. He is the author of nine books on fiber optics and cabling and writes for several magazines.

Jim and his wife, Karen, who is the GM of the FOA, have traveled the world for the FOA helping set up schools to train the workers who design, build, and operate today's communications networks. The FOA offers nearly 1,000 pages of online technical materials, over 100 videos, and two dozen free self-study courses online.

For more information, email [email protected] or visit www.jimhayes.com.

To learn more about The Fiber Optic Association, visit www.thefoa.org. Follow them on Facebook: FiberOpticAssociation, LinkedIn: company/the-fiber-optic-association-inc-foa, and YouTube: user/thefoainc.