JOURNAL OF TELECOMMUNICATIONS, VOLUME 31, ISSUE 1, JULY 2015

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Optimization of Passive FTTH Network

Design Using Vertical Micro Ducting
Mousaab M. Nahas
Abstract This paper presents a simple, cost-effective fiber network design suitable for building FTTH technology in brownfield
areas where buildings, roads, infrastructure etc. have already been constructed. The design employs vertical micro ducting
system that is developed to eliminate damages in the existing infrastructure thus minimizing restoration costs. The design also
ensures minimal deployment time hence public disturbance. We believe that the major cost saving in FTTH technology is
achieved through optimizing the outside plant network design as demonstrated in this research.
Index Terms Fiber to the home (FTTH), outside plant (OSP), passive optical networks (PON), telecommunications
infrastructure.

1 INTRODUCTION

IBER optic cables have evolved to become very small

in diameter and no longer require large ducts [1]-[3].
While traditional ducts have diameters in the range of
50 to 100 mm to hold cables with diameters as large as 25
mm, today's duct diameters can be in the range of 3 to 10
mm [4]-[6]. These small ducts can have multiple micro
channels or tubes to hold micro cables with typical outer
diameters of 6 mm for 72-cores cable, 4 mm for 24-cores
cable, and 1.6 mm for 2-, 4- and 12-cores cables. However, such small micro channels or tubes now do the job of
large sub-ducted conduits where large counts cable can
be achieved by using multiple micro cables. The number
of micro channels or micro tubes in these systems is typically in the 1 to 30 range. Based on this, several micro
ducting systems have been developed [7]-[10] and the
most attractive one is known as vertical inlaid fiber (VIF)
[10]. The idea of VIF is to install a micro duct within a
vertical micro trench made on existing roadways or sidewalks. Fiber micro cables are deployed by either being
pulled directly into the micro duct or blown in micro
tubes where in both cases the duct is laid vertically into
the vertical micro trench. In traditional deployment, once
a cable is pulled into a duct, it is considered full and additional cables are not allowed to be pulled into the duct as
they may damage the first cable. This is not the case in
VIF where installation of additional cables is still allowed
thus the system is expandable. Such principle is to be exploited here for optimizing the FTTH network design
where the duct size is proposed to be further reduced.
The micro system presented in this paper is referred to as
vertical micro ducting system (VMDS) and is based on
both micro technologies presented in [9] and [10].

2 VMDS CHARACTERISTICS
VMDS is small by design in order to minimize the
amount of excavation required. Unlike traditional sys-

tems that have large trenches (>100 mm wide and >200

mm deep), VMDS is typically installed by creating a narrow trench of 11 mm wide 200 mm deep in the ground
where a vertical duct can lay almost imperceptibly into
existing surface. As a result, construction activity is minimized hence deployment time. In addition, fiber network
is installed above the utility network which is usually
deeper than 25 cm. Finally, fiber deployment can be completed with smaller crews, less equipment and minimal
disruption and disturbance to the surrounding environment. Most importantly, the surface looks intact after installation.
VMDS is specially designed to be efficiently installed
in both hard surfaces, such as concrete or asphalt, and in
soft terrains. The micro trench is created without a need
for backhoes, excavators, and large saws, but by using a
road saw which cuts with a thin diamond blade [9], [10].
After deployment, the micro trench is restored by backfilling with cold asphalt that is compacted to the maximum. The overall result is that surface damages are virtually invisible. This can increase the surface life significantly.

3 PASSIVE FTTH NETWORK DESIGN

The entire passive FTTH network design can be divided
into two parts: components design, and network design.
Careful design of these two will considerably reduce the
overall cost of the FTTH technology.

3.1 FTTH Components Design

This part basically considers the VMDS components design including micro cables, micro ducts, micro junctions
and fiber access terminals.

3.1.1 Micro Cables Design

VMDS employs fiber cables that are very flexible and
small as mentioned before. For main network feeders, the

system uses cables of 4 mm with 24 counts (cores) or 6

M.M. Nahas is with the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department, mm with 72 counts based on the network size. For distriFaculty of Engineering, University of Jeddah, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.

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bution from fiber distribution points to homes, the system

uses smaller cables of 1.6 mm which can carry between 2
to 12 fiber cores. Each 1.6 mm micro cable is typically
dedicated for single premises in our presented FTTH design, using 2- or 4-cores cable for individual home and
more cores (e.g. 12) for commercial buildings or multidwelling units. Fig. 1 shows the 4- and 12-cores cables. In
case of 2- or 4-cores cable, one core is used for connectivity, enabling single user to have a capacity of ~100 Mbit/s,
while the other core(s) is reserved for future expansion or
backup.
(a)

(b)

Fig. 1. 1.6 mm fiber cable with (a) 4 cores, (b) 12 cores.

3.1.2 Micro Ducts Design

In practice, the above cables can be pulled or blown using
vertical PVC micro duct. This duct is two slim interlockable parts [10] and is rigid enough to protect fiber
cables from any possible damage as it is intended to be
installed close to the surface. There are two different size
proposals for the micro ducts depending on the number
of channels (tracks) in the duct. These two size options
are shown in Fig. 2. In (a), the duct has dimensions of 10
20 mm and is designed to hold single channel through
which the main feeder cables can be pulled or a single
tube can be installed in order to allow for future blowing
of drop-to-home micro cables. In (b), the duct is 10 50
mm and is designed to hold four channels (tracks) and
can be used to accommodate four feeder cables or to pull
multiple drop-to-home micro cables. Typically, each
channel in the above two types accommodates up to 7
micro cables. However, the duct sizes proposed here are
considerably smaller than those of the VIF [10].
(a)

(b)

Fig. 2. Cross section of (a) single channel micro duct, (b) multiple
channel micro duct.

3.1.3 Micro Junctions Design

At the branching point, where a dedicated cable is extracted to be dropped to single premises (home), a very
simple T-junction is used [10] instead of a splice enclosure
that is commonly used with conventional systems. However, the T-junction size must be reduced to be compatible with the micro ducts presented in the previous section
so that it fits perfectly. This micro junction is an attractive
component in VMDS as it considerably simplifies the design and reduces the field work, cost and disturbance.
3.1.4 Access Terminals Design
The VMDS-based FTTH design uses small fiber access
terminals (FATs) as local distribution points for small
number of homes. Each FAT is ideally fed by a main duct
that is connected to the main fiber distribution terminal
(FDT) in the region. In fact, the FAT provides direct access to slack cables for repairs or network extensions.
However, the proposed FAT can have a cylindrical or
rectangular prism structure with dimensions of 500 mm
200 mm. Such small design also saves considerable size
and disruption.
3.2 FTTH Network Design
3.2.1 Design Requirements
In designing an FTTH network using VMDS, a couple of
issues are taken into consideration to ensure the best design. These issues are: avoiding crosses over main and
highly used roadways thus minimizing disruption, and
using the existing infrastructure (e.g. manholes, handholes, ducts, copper network etc.) thus minimizing the
overall number of fiber cabinets and ducts. In addition, a
dedicated fiber cable is proposed to be used for single
premises (as mentioned earlier) which, in general, makes
the entire design much simpler than traditional. In this
case, each cable is independent thus a break in one cable
will never affect the other cables hence users.
3.2.2 Design Solution
To design such system, first of all, a connectivity is initially established between the existing (backbone) fiber network and the main FDT unit(s) in the FTTH project area.
This connection is practically done by pulling conventional high-count cable (with number of cores proportional to the number of premises in the area) from the
nearest existing manhole to the FDT that is typically used
to serve large number of homes (typically >150 homes).
This in general simplifies the design and minimizes the
initial cost. However, to distribute fiber cables from FDT
to homes, we propose two VMDS-based design approaches: the first is referred to as direct FDT-home approach while the second one is referred to as FDT-FAT
approach as explained below.
3.2.3 Direct FDT-Home Design
In this approach, the cores of the high-count cable entering the FDT are split into the number of homes in the distribution area where a dedicated 1.6 mm cable is run all

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the way from the FDT to each home. This approach can
be shown in Fig. 3. There are M spokes; each has N
homes, where the distance between the FDT and the first
drop is a. By and large, this can be a good option as it has
only one main distribution point for large number of
homes. Also, a separate dedicated 1.6 mm micro cable is
used to connect each individual home directly to the FDT,
resulting in high user independency. However, this design is expensive because large quantity of the micro cables is required. In addition, it is quite difficult to maintain a system with such long micro cable distances. These
drawbacks are avoided in the next approach.

the way from FDT to FAT where few fibers can be

dropped off the main feeder directly to homes. This basically reduces the number of homes that will be connected
to FAT thus some FAT units may be saved. Anyhow,
careful design of the network can reduce the overall cost
considerably.

Fig. 4. FTTH network design using FDT-FAT approach.

Fig. 3. FTTH network design using direct FDT-home approach.

3.2.4 FDT-FAT Design

In this approach, the system has FDT and FAT units as
shown in Fig. 4. Single FDT is connected to many FAT
units through multi-counts cables (typically 6 mm cable
with 72 cores) where the cores are spliced at the FAT to
serve homes at shorter distances through dedicated 1.6
mm fiber cables. This indeed saves a lot of micro cable
quantity while using single cable instead between the
FDT and FAT. For example, assume the distance between
the FDT and the first drop (distance a in Fig. 3, 4) is 300 m
and the system has 3 spokes; each has 15 homes with 20
m spacing between the two successive homes (c in the
pictures). Using the FDT-FAT approach, we save 300 m of
the 1.6 mm cable for each home, which means a total of
13,500 m (300 45). This is huge saving in the quantity of
fiber micro cables. In addition, the system is much faster
to deploy and has a localized testing reference (at the
FAT) hence easier to test and maintain.
Typically, our VMDS-based FTTH network design is
proposed to have 4 spokes from each FAT where each
spoke has no more than 18 homes. This is assigned for
both pulled and blown cables and has been chosen according to the maximum possible capacity of blown vertical micro ducts using the smallest available tube diameters. In addition, the ideal number of FATs in this system
can be up to 20 for single FDT. Nevertheless, this number
can be reduced by using more FAT spokes if necessary.
Moreover, the number can also be decreased if the main
feeder cable (of 72 counts) passes by number of homes on

However, what is demonstrated here is a generalized

VMDS-based design concept that fits comfortably in any
area but needs proper customization for every specific
project. So it is the engineers role to implement the above
proposal such that the minimal cost is attained. This task
literally involves right selection of the FDT and FAT locations as well as the trench layout, depending on the district details such as roadmap, utility network layout,
manholes/handholes locations, blocks dimensions etc.
These details are usually obtained during the initial survey of the project.

4 CONCLUSION
We presented a passive FTTH network design using vertical micro ducting system (VMDS). The system demonstrated here is suitable for establishing an FTTH network
in well-constructed urban areas, where it eliminates the
damages in the existing civil infrastructure. We believe
that the proposed VMDS-based network design is the
most suitable solution for all FTTx applications (including
FTTH, FTTB, etc.) where it enables full deployment of
fiber optics in shorter time, minimal disruption and reasonable cost compared to conventional deployment
methodologies. Such quick deployment means that customers will no longer wait in order to get connected to
existing backbone telecom infrastructure.

ACKNOWLEDGMENT
The author thanks TeraSpan and Lite Access companies
for some information about their micro ducting technologies.

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REFERENCES
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K. Nothofer, A. Weiss and P. Lausch, Optical Fiber Cable Suited for Blown Installation or Pushing Installation in Microducts
of Small Diameter, US Patent, US7570852B2, 2009.
[2] K. Konstadinidis, J. Turnipseed and P. Weimann, Optical Fiber
Cables for Microduct Installations, US Patent US7431963B2,
2008.
[3] W. Stcklein and H. Knoch, Development of a Micro Cable
Family with Stranded Micromodules for Blown Cable Applications, Proc. International Wire & Cable Symposium, pp. 293-296,
2009.
[4] P. Curzio, L. Jawerth, 3 mm Microduct System for FTTH Networks in MDUs, Proc. The International Cable Connectivity Symposium, pp. 527-533, 2012.
[5] HDPE Conduit, Dura-Line, http://www.duraline.com, 2012.
[6] Micronet Micro Cable System, Hexatronic Cables & Interconnect
Systems, http://www.hexatronic.com. 2014.
[7] S. Purcell, Micro Trench Duct Placement, US Patent
US20050191133A1, 2005.
[8] D. Comteq, Microduct Cabling: Fiber to the Home, Proc. International Wire & Cable Symposium, pp. 431-437, 2003.
[9] Air Blown Fibre & Microduct Solutions, Lite Access Technologies, http://www.liteaccess.com. 2015.
[10] Vertical
Inlaid
Fiber
(VIF),
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http://www.teraspan.com. 2015.
Mousaab M. Nahas received a BSc degree from the University of
Jordan in 1999 and an MSc degree from Aston University in 2002.
His specialization is communications engineering. In 2003, he joined
the Photonics Research Group at Aston University and received a
PhD degree in optical fiber communications in 2007. He worked in
telecommunications industry from 2007 to 2009. In 2009, he joined
King Abdulaziz University in KSA and worked as Assistant Professor
in Electrical Engineering until 2014. Since 2015, he has been working in the Electrical and Computer Engineering department at the
University of Jeddah in KSA. Dr. Nahass main research interests
are upgrading legacy WDM communication systems and monitoring
long-haul fiber links. He is also interested in the optimization of fiber
optic networks including FTTx systems.