Re: Fiber cut in SF area

[Ong Beng Hui <ongbh () ispworkshop com>]

The problem of been LoS is a big problem in metro as far as I know.
You can't just put a pair of FSO gear without going to the building 
owner to talk about rights and cost. Not forgetting lighting protection 
and other stuff.

Murphy, Brian S CTR USAF ACC 83 NOS/Det 4 wrote:
> I haven't seen any mention of the possible use of FSO (Free Space Optics) by the provider to restore some reasonable amount of 
> connectivity during an outage due to a fiber cut.  I would expect that having 2 or 3 pairs of FSO boxes to provide a "reduced 
> failover capacity" in metro areas would be a reasonable measure to ensure service for extended physical (fiber break, cut, 
> backhoe) outages - although not necessarily for power.  Yes, it would take some time to roll them out and set them up, but less time 
> than the crew working the splices, and the folks handling the FSO boxes should be different from the fiber splice truck roll crew.
>
> Note that a power outage would not allow microwave to be an effective remediation method either.
>
> Plus, FSO's use of lasers (vice microwaves) means no issues with spectrum (AFAIK).  Granted, they have limited distance 
> and require LoS, but using two or more pairs can probably handle the 80% situation in the metro (unless there is data to 
> indicate otherwise).
>
> murph
>