Fibre Optics

[excollier]

I attended a basic intro to fibre optic distribution and IRS run by Global Invacom the other night in Northern Ireland.
It seems like the way forward for large distribution systems, as it is almost lossless, much better than co-ax and multiswitches, and no earth bonding problems either (sorry all you electricians out there).
Has anyone here used it before, and how did they find it, as it seems very logical and simple to me.
Test equipment is pricey, as are lnbs, but it must surely get more affordable as it takes hold.
I was impressed, I must say.

 

[Analoguesat]

Might solve my woodland problem - put a dish at the far end facing onto one of the interesting west birds & run the fibre optic through the trees

 

[excollier]

Perfectly feasible. One dish can run a feed for up to 10km with little loss and lnbs are available in C120 flange for larger (than 80cm) dishes.
Pricey kit though.
I am just intrigued by the tech.

 

[rolfw]

I've done a couple, both with 100m runs and no bigger than normal dishes, you still need a power supply for the LNB, in both my cases 100m of WF125 was used, but not to waste it, I used it to carry the terrestrial signals.

Easy to set up, set up both of mine using a quad converter direct onto the Fibre LNB, then checked the signal strength and quality at the other end using the same kit, worked a treat.

 

[archive10]

I had one put in as part of a project in Stockholm last year.
We used an Invacom fibre LNB, and a fibre-run of about 400 meters or so.

The original plan was to use coax, but there was a building in the way of satellite where the dish was.
Putting it somewhere sensible meant having very long cable runs - fibre solved the problem.

Although tested, the dish feed is not in production (yet). They're still using DTT at the moment...

 

[excollier]

Thanks for the feedback, can't see that I would ever need to use it, though knowledge never hurts.

 

[FTTH]

Test equipment is pricey, as are lnbs, but it must surely get more affordable as it takes hold.
I was impressed, I must say.

Essential Test equipment required for a pre-terminated system is an optical power meter (around £200).
If you are running pre-terminated leads then you can get away with just that.

We have seen many of our customers simply lining up the dish with a standard LNB and then swapping out for the Fibre-LNB.
Test the other end after the Fibre GTU and you are back to COAX.


(Fibre for SAT alone is posisbly underutilising the fibre, longterm the cable can be used to deliver Gigabit Broadband and TV combined. If you want to future proof your install fibre is the way).