Our Services
Here at DigiTek, we provide every aspect of fiber optic construction and more
Underground Fiber Placing
- This process happens after Horizontal Directional Drill (HDD) crews have placed the conduit.
- Conduit proofing, the process of using an air compressor to blow air and install mule tape, which is used to pull the fiber through.
- We use a specialized truck and trailer with a pulling wheel that we use to slowly feed the fiber down the conduit.
- This process is crucial and must be done in the correct manner or you run the risk of pulling the fiber too hard and damaging the glass.
Aerial Fiber Placing and Aerial Construction
- Anchors are placed to help with pole stability.
- The same specialized truck and trailer is used in pulling for aerial fiber, however instead of feeding the fiber through conduit, its slowly fed through rollers and up to the pole.
- Transfer hardline and service drops from old pole to new pole.
- Using a combination of bucket trucks, ladders, and climbing gear to install strand and lash fiber in compliance with National Electrical Safety Code (NESC) standards.
- Installing aerial splice case
Fiber Splicing
- Once the fiber has been placed, we then begin prepping the cable and splicing the fiber.
- This process involves stripping the cable, buffer tubes, and then each individual fiber.
- Taking the time to make sure everything is prepped properly is very crucial and allows your flow of splicing to be much smoother.
- Organization is crucial here in order to achieve correct splicing to the customers design.
- The two separate fibers are then loaded into the splicer and fused together and checked to make sure the splice is good and the optimal level of loss is sufficient.
- After all the fibers are spliced, they are loaded into the tray and the excess slack is coiled up and packed in neat and orderly.
Fiber Testing
- Once the fiber is placed and spliced, it's time to test each fiber individually for any bad splices or damage to the cable during the pulling process.
- We use an Optical Time Domain Reflectometer (OTDR) to measure the distance and total loss of light over the span of the fiber.
- This process verifies that our fiber has been placed properly and is running to optimal levels to get the most efficient system for our customers.
Coax Splicing
- This process is often referred to as the “old school cable splicing” in which COAX splicing is becoming limited as our customers are starting to turn towards an all-fiber solution to the end user.
- COAX splicing is still being utilized to use existing Cable plant and limit the build costs when trying to achieve the 1 Gbps speeds to the end user.
- COAX splicing is often used in conjunction with a Hybrid-Fiber Coax network. Service providers will take an existing cable plant and run fiber deeper into the network to install nodes in certain spots all while still utilizing the existing structure.
- For example, 1 node (device that turns light into RF waves that travel down COAX cable) feeding 1,000 customers could be turned into 10 nodes feeding 100 customers a piece.
-Doing this optimizes speeds for the end user. Think about cramming 1,000 customers and all their networking information down 1 piece of glass (fiber) versus having 100 customers on one piece of glass (fiber). Obviously this leaves more room for data transfer and can limit lag time for the end user.
