Outside Plant System Networks

 

Fiber to the Premise

The Outside Plant System (OSP) represents all of the physical cables, equipment and locations outside of a building. In the example above, outside plant starts at the point at which the distribution cabling leaves the central office, and ends at the termination point on the outside of a premise receiving internet service. All of the physical, tangible assets that enable your network between two “inside” locations make up the outside plant network.

It encompasses a wide array of components, including cables, conduits, cabinets, poles, and manholes, among others. OSP serves as the backbone that connects various network elements, such as cell towers, data centers, and central offices, enabling the delivery of services to end-users.

The significance of OSP in telecom cannot be downplayed. It provides the necessary pathways for data and voice signals to travel from one point to another, enabling seamless connectivity and communication. OSP installations are crucial for both urban and rural environments, as they ensure that individuals, businesses, and institutions can access reliable and efficient telecommunications services.

In the rapidly evolving world of telecommunications, Outside Plant (OSP) infrastructure plays a pivotal role in connecting communities and enabling the seamless flow of data in the Philippines. Within the realm of OSP, the Fiber Optic Network stands as a cornerstone of modern communication systems, facilitating high-speed data transmission over long distances.

A Fiber Optic Network stands at the forefront of modern telecommunication infrastructure, leveraging the unique properties of light to transmit data at incredibly high speeds. Unlike traditional copper-based networks, which rely on electrical signals, fiber optic networks use optical signals that travel through thin strands of glass or plastic known as optical fibers.

The heart of a Fiber Optic Network is its optical fibers. These fibers are designed to carry light signals over long distances with minimal signal loss. They comprise a core, which carries the light signal, and a cladding that surrounds the core and helps keep the light contained within the core. The core and cladding have different refractive indices, which enable the phenomenon of total internal reflection to occur, ensuring that the light signals bounce off the cladding and remain within the core.

Designing an OSP network is a highly specialized function, and getting it right can be difficult.

Telephone networks are mainly outside plant (OSP) systems, connecting buildings over distances as short as a few hundred meters to hundreds or thousands of kilometers. Data rates for telecom are typically 2.5 to 10 gigabits per second using very high power lasers that operate exclusively over single-mode fibers. The big push for telecom is now taking fiber directly to a commercial building or the home, since the signals are now too fast for traditional twisted copper pairs.

CaTV also uses single-mode fibers with systems that are either hybrid fiber-coax (HFC) or digital where the backbone is fiber and the connection to the home is on coax. Coax still works for CaTV since it has very high bandwidth itself. Some CaTV providers have discussed or even tried some fiber to the home, but have not seen the economics become attractive yet.

Besides telecom and CaTV, there are many other OSP applications of fiber. Intelligent highways are dotted with security cameras and signs and/or signals connected on fiber. 

Metropolitan networks owned and operated by cities can carry a variety of traffic, including surveillance cameras, emergency services, educational systems, telephone, LAN, security, traffic monitoring and control and sometimes even traffic for commercial interests using leased bandwidth on dark fibers or city-owned fibers. However, since most are designed to support longer links than premises or campus applications, single-mode is the fiber of choice.

Fiber is mostly the communications medium of choice, since its greater distance and bandwidth capabilities make it either the only choice or considerably less expensive than copper or wireless. Only inside buildings is there a choice to be made, and that choice is affected by economics, network architecture and the tradition of using copper inside buildings. 

Engineers designing OSP networks must also consider how they will troubleshoot the network and make repairs and upgrades. To fix something, you must be able to physically reach it. So OSP design and planning has to include careful consideration around where a piece of equipment can be located. To decide whether a splitter can be located at a certain place, for example, an engineer may have to visit the location and look for a manhole or telephone pole to put it on, or determine whether there is public land on which to place a cabinet.

OSP engineers are also tasked with planning and maintaining capacity – how much data can flow through any one location on the cables and equipment in place. A network’s capacity can change in an instant if a storm breaks a tree down onto aerial cables, a flood wipes out electrical connections to equipment, or sneaky little creatures decide they want to chew through buried fiber cables. When that happens, OSP engineers are on the job to determine how to fix the network, re-route the signal, or come up with any number of other solutions.

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