Abstract
The telecommunication industry has implemented fibre deployment guidelines that reliably safeguard cable health during installation in the field. While installed fibre cables remain buried in the field, temperature and moisture in the locality subject them to mechanical expansions and corrosion. Directly buried fibre cables experience accelerated degradation that results from exposure to harsh environments. This increases pulse spreading and overlaps, with a mean time duration, known as Differential Group Delay (DGD), on the signal, as it propagates along the cable. DGD is stochastic; thus, Mean DGD is determined and presented as Polarization Mode Dispersion (PMD). This work undertook a real life assessment of how fluctuations in temperature and relative humidity influence PMD in directly buried fibre optical links, in a case study that focused on the fibre cable network owned by Liquid Telecom Kenya. The network spans across two key climatic ecosystems, namely, rift valley highlands and northern lowlands. The analysis revealed that fibre cables experience higher PMD in semi-arid areas by a factor of 2.6, compared to highland areas.
Highlights
Fibre cables that are directly buried in the ground often encounter operating conditions that impact negatively their performance, with regard to high capacity data transmission
The depth is the same that the cable was buried. This is the first documented real life study of Polarization Mode Dispersion (PMD) of fibres deployed in a field, where correlations with T and Relative humidity (RH)% have been explored
It is noteworthy to stress that the impacts of RH on PMD cannot be ignored in semi-arid regions, where they correspond to direct relationship for the better part of test durations
Summary
Fibre cables that are directly buried in the ground often encounter operating conditions that impact negatively their performance, with regard to high capacity data transmission. Temperature and humidity variations in the directly buried cables have been cited as significant influences on Polarization Mode Dispersion (PMD) [1, 2]. This can be very challenging to economies, including Kenya, which operate liberal policies on fibre cable infrastructure. Existing fibre plants require managing until they attain their endlife This implies that telecommunication providers must keep tracking the PMD fluctuations associated with the cables in the field so as to determine the appropriate period to replace them. This has to be undertaken in a timely manner so as to minimize the traffic disruptions to customers, underpinned by the emerging regard for consumer rights
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