The replacement of aging copper wire telephone legacy, internet infrastructures requires substantial investment and civil engineering works, such as the digging-up of roads to lay down high-speed broadband, account for up to 80% of the cost of deploying high-speed networks. Telecoms companies are rolling out fibre networks within EU member countries, across Europe, and in countries in the rest of the world. However, those companies are meeting their implementation targets by installing fibre from the area network to the street cabinet (otherwise known as the “Final Mile”) where it is most economic to do so leaving some 10 to 15% hard to reach broadband subscribers with a substandard service. Furthermore, whilst the target of 100Mbps was the target for 2020 set in 2012, technology has moved on and the new standard being set by countries such as South Korea with advanced digital networks is up to 10Gbps. Although copper wire internet infrastructures are slow they are ubiquitous, based on telephone communication and reaching into almost every household and business. F2F’s solution is a cable extraction technology to enable the utilization of the copper wire infrastructure and with very limited expensive excavation replace the copper inner core of the pre-existing cable with fibre optic cable using the original cable sheath as a duct. Our technology is focused on extraction and replacement of the copper core cable both from the broadband backbone to the area network and from the area network to the street connection point. It works by compressing the copper inner core within the sheath of a buried or ducted cable using a lubricating fluid injected at pressure between the cable sheath and wrapping around the copper inner core. Once the inner core is fully compressed, it is extracted using a winch and the replacement fibre optic cable can be drawn through as the redundant core is pulled out.
The objectives for the project are to develop the technology from TRL7 to TRL9 for the extraction of the copper inner core from the legacy telecom broadband cable by compression to create a duct for fibre optic cable so that it is a robust proven process to be licenced to and operated by end users who install fibre optic networks.
The technology in its present format was developed using standard equipment and components such as the pump and winch, adapted to demonstrate the process. Grant funding for this project by the EU has enabled Fast2Fibre to develop the key components of the technology so a well-developed commercial technology package can be demonstrated to potential end-users and licensed to them. In addition to the technology itself we’ve also developed training packages for end users and have a manufacturing and logistics supply route established for the process consumables such as the extraction fluid. Additionally, we’ve developed a proprietary pump and quick connector system for the process that we will supply to our clients under licence. Through demonstrations and field trials as part of this project we’re now engaging in commercial negotiations with potential licencees for the process.
