Work is Changing :from (Copper to Fiber)

[phoneman]

Wow! I look back over the past 20 years, from Southwestern Bell to AT&T, My career has really changed! So I find myself doing mostly fiber repairs now. I never thought I would see the day, but copper is going away. It's really cool to see how my crew has progressed, and how everyone has developed thier own ways of doing the fiber repairs. Jeres a couple of mine from last week.

[Canoe1]

I remember when my dad started working with fiber optic, he was excited and would tell us how many cables it could carry.
He started with SWB sometime around '76.
Hopefully he will retire soon.

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[phoneman]

I remember when my dad started working with fiber optic, he was excited and would tell us how many cables it could carry.
He started with SWB sometime around '76.
Hopefully he will retire soon.

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44 years! Is he going to take the vsp + $50,000?

[Canoe1]

He's hoping they offer it to him.

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[Sackett]

That is really cool and very interesting. Would you mind sharing some details on what your doing in the pictures? I've heard fiber is much more difficult to repair and much more expensive.

[Johnny Dangerr]

I live 2 miles from downtown Houston in a home built in 1949. One of the biggest fights in my life was getting AT&T to install fiber optic. {months of phone calls} I think I am the only one for miles. Have to get a bit re-buried today the new fence guys dug up. It absoultly rocks,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,

[AntlerCollector]

23 years and counting for me. What we did in the beginning as Southwestern Bell techs looks nothing like what we do today. The old Bell phone men only had to worry about tip and ring on copper wires.

[KDinTX]

That is really cool and very interesting. Would you mind sharing some details on what your doing in the pictures? I've heard fiber is much more difficult to repair and much more expensive.

Fiber is actually really easy to repair once you learn it. The equipment is most of the cost, 15-25k for a fusion splicer, splice trailer etc. It can be done cheaper with fiber locks or mechanical splices, but fusion essentially welds the glass together and has the least amount of loss of any other splicing.

[phoneman]

That is really cool and very interesting. Would you mind sharing some details on what your doing in the pictures? I've heard fiber is much more difficult to repair and much more expensive.

These are the closures and trays you bring the cables into , then you sort and fuse them. The fusion machines are $8,000. After fused they are trayed which is actually kind of hard in the beginning, but really easy now.

[SaltwaterSlick]

Amazing stuff right there and something to be very proud of to have the skills to do.

Phoenman, how long you been at it?

[curtintex]

As an underground contractor....Sure was a lot cheaper to cut copper lines[emoji4]


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[Arrowsmith]

We still have a copper line to our house in rural SE Iowa. We pay for a phone line (that we don't use) to get internet. We get about 16-17 Mbps which is enough to stream Hulu live TV and get decent internet service. We live in the only part of the county that is still on copper. The good news is the fiber crew is within about 4 miles of our house headed this way. Hopefully we will be on fiber before they have shutdown for winter. It will actually be $30.00 less per month (no phone modem needed) and a heck of a lot faster.

[AntlerCollector]

We still have a copper line to our house in rural SE Iowa. We pay for a phone line (that we don't use) to get internet. We get about 16-17 Mbps which is enough to stream Hulu live TV and get decent internet service. We live in the only part of the county that is still on copper. The good news is the fiber crew is within about 4 miles of our house headed this way. Hopefully we will be on fiber before they have shutdown for winter. It will actually be $30.00 less per month (no phone modem needed) and a heck of a lot faster.

You don’t need a telephone number and dial tone to get internet service. The internet will run on what’s called a “dry loop.” Internet only.

[Tony Pic]

Communications have come a long way. Rolm, Ericson and Wang were leaders in that field at that time. They had proprietary cables for their equipment. I hate to say it, but Bloomberg was big in developing fast pace communications and provided his own terminals to get that info out there. That is how he really made his money.
I did 35 years as heavy construction electrician, I always jumped at the chance to be a data fairy, as we called it . Trade in my pliers and screwdriver for a pair of scissors and butter knife.
When fiber first came around in the mid 90's all of the splices were the hot fusion type. OTDR machines were the norm. Splicing labs were in trucks under not so clean conditions. That made splicing fiber a craft for the very skilled. Now I understand there are mechanical connections and just about most anyone familiar with fiber can do a splice or termination. No more "specialists" like there used to be. I am retired now. I am sure much has changed.
We loved copper because of the mongo

[smokeless]

I live in the country also. They won’t run the dang cable down our road. Maybe a mile off the highway and 10 to 12 families it would service. Internet is so slow, it’s ridiculous.