As the need for high-speed, high-
bandwidth technologies multiplies
each year, so does the infrastructure
required to handle it. The installation
of optical fiber, therefore, has become
the norm in the past couple decades
to meet ever-growing bandwidth-
hungry applications. The cost of
optical fiber has decreased over the
years due to its high demand, thereby
making it much more feasible to
deploy for virtually every end user.
Essentially, there are three methods
of installing optical fiber:
1. Conventional cabling through
which optical fiber cable is pulled
by large work crews into innerduct
or mesh ducts and into conduit.
This is the most well-known
installation method within the
ICT industry.
36 I ICT TODAY
A COMPARISON
OF BLOWN FIBER AND
CONVENTIONAL OPTICAL
FIBER INSTALLATION
METHODS
By Kathy Woolf, RCDD
2. Blown cable systems that use
a blowing technique to install
similarly constructed optical
cables as conventional cabling
but at a reduced outside diameter
(OD); various manufacturers
of blown cable systems provide
different types of ducts, micro-
cable fiber counts, and equipment.
No two blown cable systems
are exactly alike.
3. Blown fiber systems through
which optical fiber bundles rather
than cables are blown into empty
tube cables for the formation of
the fiber pathway infrastructure.
Blown fiber technology was introduced
in North America in 1991
through an exclusive manufacturer
license with British Telecom
(BT-London) that invented the
fiber blowing technology in the
early 1980s. Subsequently, other
manufacturers acquired the BT
license. Likewise, no two blown
fiber systems are exactly alike.
Because the ICT industry often
mistakenly refers to blown cable and
blown fiber systems synonymously
as “blown fiber" or "air blown fiber”
(which is actually a U.S. registered
trademark of a blown fiber system
manufacturer), it is important to
emphasize that these two systems are
distinctly different technologies and
fiber installation methods.
Based on knowledge and years of
hands-on field experience with instal-
lations of both conventional cabling
(1) and blown fiber (3), the information
provided herein is confined to
these two installation methods. Both