Getting fibre to your home

August 12, 2019

Fibre can bring the world to your home in just a second, but there’s a lot that goes into making that happen. We spoke to our friends at Octotel, Cape Town’s largest open access fibre network, to find out exactly what goes into getting your home connected to super-fast internet.

Planning

Before we can begin physical trenching work in an area, we need to plan where our core route cable will run, where the cables connecting each home will be placed and positioning of each manhole. We need to do this for every metre that we physically construct. We then submit this plan to the relevant government institution for the permits to build infrastructure.

Trenching

After approval, we can start laying our fibre. The first thing we need to do is dig up the sidewalk and lay the empty ducts for the core route cables, as well as the ducts that go to each home. This is performed on the same day so that we can fill the trench back in. During this time our manholes are also installed, allowing us to connect homes to our network.

Reinstatement

The moment we are certain that all the duct integrity has been maintained throughout the trenching process, we begin reinstating process. We re-pave and re-tar the trenched areas, ensuring that they are returned to their original state at a bare minimum. In most instances, however, the area is left in a better condition than it was before trenching commenced.

Route Work

Once the empty ducts have been laid and their integrity has been vetted, blowing of the fibre commences. Here, high-pressure air is used to push the fibre through the empty ducts. Thereafter, fibre optic enclosures are then “dropped” in the manholes. Fusion of the fibre strands in the manholes as well as at the wall boxes then follows. This is called splicing, where each interpoint gets connected to the network.

Activating The Network

Once route work is done, our team of qualified engineers test all the component parts, ensuring that everything has been completed to standard and that the network is stable. The network is then declared live.

Installing a fibre network takes a lot of hard work but getting you connected is a simple process. Once the fibre provider in your neighbourhood has completed the above steps, we can start processing your order to get your home connected. Once your order is placed, we contact the fibre provider to arrange an installation at your home before we can activate you and get you online.