TE's Rapid Fiber Panel Slashes Time From Fiber Installations

MINNEAPOLIS, MN - TE Connectivity, building on an approach developed by ADC before TE acquired that company late last year, introduced an innovative panel for installing new fiber equipment in central offices, headends and mobile switching centers. According to Jaxon Lang, vice president of TE Connectivity Telecom Networks, the new equipment - the RAPID fiber panel - can reduce total cost per installation by as much as 25 percent, compared with traditional installation practices.

The panel significantly reduces both installation time and labor costs for turning up new fiber equipment. Featuring the RapidReel internal fiber cable spool, the solution requires less engineering time, simplifies product selection and ordering, shortens product lead time and reduces cable congestion in the central office. In many cases, less-skilled labor can be used for the installation as well.

The RapidReel spool conserves space by combining the intermediate distribution panel with an intrafacility cable (IFC). The IFC is mounted inside the panel on the spool and provides built-in slack storage - which is feasible only because the IFC is made from microcable that is only 3 mm in diameter. Most cables made today are much larger because they are made to be broken out and loaded; the IFC fibers don't need to be individually broken out because they terminate to a single high-performance, multifiber push-on connector (MPO). This enables rapid plug-and-play connection of all 12 fibers at once to the main optical distribution frame.

With up to 100 feet of IFC cable available on each RAPID fiber panel, installers can pay out the precise length they need rather than having to measure the precise lengths they need and order custom cable lengths. The RAPID fiber panel is available in several sizes, cable types and standard cable lengths, providing the flexibility needed to tailor deployments to individual project requirements. However, for any particular service provider, two or three part numbers should cover at least 90 percent of their needs, according to Pat Thompson, director of market development at TE Connectivity. This means providers can keep panels in inventory and not have to special-order each one.