Both Optical Reach dielectric and armored cables can be used in aerial installations. Dielectric cables contain no metal components, which tends to minimize lighting strikes and avoid electrical field crossover from power lines. Armored cables offer more mechanical protection from attack but must be grounded. Optical Reach cables come in three styles in both armored and dielectric versions:

Fiber Feeder: A compact flexible and cast-efficient central tube design for 2 to 18 fibers an armored self supporting version is available.
Central Tube: Similar design to Fiber Feeder with a higher capacity of up to 48 fibers - an armored 96-fiber version is available.
Stranded Loose Tube: Available in up to 288 fibers – available in 14-km lengths.

Installation of ADSS Optical cable

Fiber Feeder Optical Reach self-support cables offer tremendous saving in time and labor for both trunk and distribution installations. Because self-supporting cable eliminates the need for lashing, it can often be placed by a smaller crew. There are a few unique characteristics as to its placement.

1. Verification of sag and tension for self-support spans prior to installation.
2. Self-supporting cable an oval cross-section with specialized suspension clamps that will not separate the cable from the strength members.
3. Use specialized cable blocks positioned only at poles. 
4. Self-support Fiber Feeder cable also requires special pole mounting hardware and dead-ends. 

Pulling Tension
Dynamometers are used to measure the dynamic tension in the cable. They allow continuous review of pulling tension. Sudden increases in pulling tension, caused by factors such as a cable falling from a block or a cable binding against pole-line hardware, can be detected immediately.

Breakaway swivels are used alone or in conjunction with dynamometers to ensure that the maximum puling tension is not exceeded. A swivel with break tension equal to that of the cable is placed between the cable puller and pulling grips. Use one breakaway swivel for each cable being pulled.

Bending Radii
Cables are often routed around corners during cable placement. A more flexible cable (one with smaller bending radii) will require less pulling tension to get it through a bend in the route. Optical Reach fiber optic cables are designed for maximum flexibility to ease installation.

NEVER EXCEED the minimum bending radii. Over bent cable may deform and damage the fiber inside and can high attenuation. 

Bending radius for optical fiber cable is given as loaded and unloaded. Loaded means that the cable is under pulling tension and is being bent simultaneously. Unloaded means that the cable is under no tension or up to a residual tension of around 25% of its maximum pulling tension. The unloaded bending radius is also the radius allowed for storage purposes.
The loaded bending radii of cables during the construction process are controlled by technique and equipment. Corner blocks and set-up chutes have large radius bends and low friction surfaces that minimally contribute to the increase in pulling tension that is required to pull the cable through this equipment.
Excess (slack) loops
5% of the total run of the cable should be looped and stored along the route. Excess loops should be no more that 1 mile/1.6 km apart and at every highway/railroad crossing.

Installation Methods

Self-supporting cable installation – Drive-Off / Moving Reel

The drive-off method is the simplest way to place self-supporting Fiber Feeder cable. Attach the cable to pole-line hardware at the first pole of the cable run. Leave enough excess cable to facilitate splicing. The cable should be able to reach the ground, enter a splicing trailer/truck and be placed in an enclosure. If in doubt about the length, leave more than less. Caps the open cable end of prevent contamination from dirt or moisture. Coil the cable so as not to exceed the minimum bend radius and tie the loop to the top of the pole.

Ground and bond the armor at the first pole. The armor is contacted by means of a clamp (sometimes called 'shark jaws') that pierces the jacket to reach the armor.
Cable blocks should be installed at all poles not framed in dead-end hardware configurations.
Pay the cable off the top of the reel and manually place it into the cable block. Continue to pay-off the cable slowly and uniformly to keep the pulling tension even. Stop-and-go pulling may cause the cable to 'bounce' and damage it at the pole blocks. Do not let the cable reel over spin and let slack cable spin off the reel.

Lift the cable from the cable blocks and place it into the suspension clamp once the cable route has been tensioned as required. Tension the wherever there are dead end hardware configurations. Ground and bond the armor at these locations once the cable is tensioned.

Self-supporting cable installation – Back-Pull / Stationary Reel set-up

Since it is difficult to ground self-supporting Fiber Feeder cable during a back-pull, extra caution must be taken during installation. This is especially true if the right-of-way is shared with power cables. 

Trailer set-up
The trailer should be positioned in-line with the strand and twice the distance of the set-up chute to the ground from the chute. This prevents the cable from rubbing on the pole or reel or binding on the chute. If the trailer cannot be positioned there, move the set-up chute and cable trailer to an adjacent pole.

The cable should pay-off the top of the cable reel. The pay-off of the cable from the reel should cause a downward force at the hitch of the trailer. 
Chock the trailer wheels. Adjust the reel brakes as needed. Place protective barriers and cones as needed to protect pedestrians.
Self-supporting cable installation – Back-Pull/Stationary Reel

Pulling set-up
Attach the correct-sized cable grip. Then attach a swivel and a pulling line to the grip. Attention should be given to the tension that is being placed on the cable. There is not a practical method to monitor the tension in the cable itself.


Although it is recommended that optical fiber cable be pulled by hand, a vehicle may be used ONLY in conjunction with a breakaway swivel or a dynamometer.

Cable block placement
Use cable blocks designed to be attached directly to the pole hardware. Pull the cable out along the pole line and lift it into the cable blocks with a cable lifter or by hand from a bucket truck.

Tensioning self support cable
Generally, self-supporting optical should be tensioned every four to six poles and at every turn in the pole line, although this may vary depending of circumstances.

ADSS Fiber Optic cable installation of Advantages over Clipped Optical Fiber Cable to a separately installed stainless steel messenger wire. 

The Optical Fiber which is clipped to a messenger wire is in fact no aerial cable; it is a very lightweight underground cable with an outerjacket that has been made UV resistant. The design of an ADSS contains a number of features that are specially build into this cable design in order to withstand the sometimes severe circumstances under which aerial cable must operate.

1. ADSS cable have a high longitudinal strength provided by the layer of aramide yarns so when something happens with the poles or for instance a tree is falling on the line there is a good chance that the ADSS cable will survive. The cable quoted is in fact suitable for spans between poles of up to 100 meters; even in the case two adjacent poles are removed and the span would increase to 90 meters the cable will give no problem and the transmission properties will remain intact.

2. Because the loose tubes are stranded around the central strength member with a special twist an ADSS cable has an outstanding elongation capacity without the fibers becoming under stress. This ADSS design is suitable to bridge span lengths of more than 1000 meter between two poles under heavy wind and ice load conditions. 

3. When applying this cable in a 100 meter span it will have an installation sag of 1 meter but with a 120 km/hour windload it will swing 3.62 meter horizontally; in fact it will elongate wind influence another 2.62 meter in the middle without damaging the cable or the fibers.

4. The temperature behavior of the ADSS is almost neutral, which means that this cable does practically not elongate or shrink under the influence of changes in temperature. Since the clipped Loose Tube Cable is in fact no aerial cable its temperature behavior is less stable; consequently it will follow a complete cycle of elongation and shrinking every 24 hours whereby the cable moves along the messenger wire.

5. A clipped cable has the tendency to "creep" along the messenger wire specifically in those cases where the line is not fully horizontal (and hardly any pole route is horizontal). In those cases where a pole route is going up or downhill continuously the clipped cable will "creep" into the direction of the lower end resulting on the longer run in exposing high forces on the high end of the cable (fixation point); since this cable is not designed to withstand such forces it might end up in transmission problems on the longer run.

6. The ADSS design has a good resistance against gun or buckshot's; the cable can swing freely so in case a bullet hits the cable it has a self demping effect which will prevent the bullet from entering the cable core and damaging the fibers. Moreover the cable is provided with a heavy layer of aramide yarns, which protects the cable even better against bullets penetrating the cable. 

7. The installation time of an ADSS is usually shorter than the installation time of a clipped cable. Of course the stainless steel wire must be installed separately after which the cable can be clipped to the wire in a second installation run. A skilled ADSS installation team can install approx. 5 km ADSS cable per day which is of course very fast. Installing an ADSS usually provides savings in the installation costs.

8. Clipped aerial cable are designed for a lifetime between 10 and 15 years whilst ADSS is designed for a lifetime of 30 to 40 years. 
Reliability 

The Calculation of reliability in optical cables is based on the formula. 

E=(N1/M1+N2/M2+……Nn/Mn)/n

Where E is estimation of reliability, N is no of cable faults in a year, M is cumulative cable Km installed in the same year, n is total no of years.

Suspension Sets
The Suspension sets are designed and manufactured in order to withstand in service high static and dynamic loads as well as the temperature which are experienced in the area where the cable will be installed.

The helical cable fittings will grip the cable with the necessary force, which is provided by the helical wires and which are self supporting the cable.

Characteristics
þ Complete protection of the optical fiber cable with a set of helical rods, which ends are relieved and dipped to protect the outer cable sheath.
þ Suspension fitting allow controlled movement of cable under abnormal unbalanced load conditions, to prevent overloading/damage to structures.
þ For installation of the helical cable fittings no additional tools are required.
þ All steel rods are protected by hot dip galvanizing.

Optical Cable Jointing Box
Optical cables jointing box is an indispensable device in optical line project. It is used to seal and protect spliced fiber and store some length of fiber for future use.

This type of box is tube-shaped in appearance with 2 to 4 cable entries (including pigtail-viewing hole). It can be used as straight type or branch type. It is mechanically sealed and suitable for Max. 22 mm cable OD and 144-fiber cable.

Features

¨ Wide application: Suitable for slotted core, loose tube stranded, central tube type armoured and unamoured cable. It is flexible in application.
¨ Good sealing performance: Good quality of silicon rubble sealing ring is used and heat shrinkage tube or adhesive type is used at the entries.
¨ High weatherproof performance: It is made of high strength engineering plastic and anti-age agent is added in the process. It is of high and low temperature proof, good aging proof and long life time.
¨ High mechanical strength: It is of good performance in anti-tensile strength, anti-crush, anti-impact, anti-bending and torsion.
¨ Good in design: Fiber tray is hinged removal type. It can be flexibly turned over and convenient after fiber winding.
¨ Earthling device is included.

Types

With 2 cable entries, straight type
With 3-4 cable entries, branch type
With 3-4 cable entries (including pigtail viewing hole), for both straight and branch type for direct burial application.