Yet another first for Interconnect Systems - minicabling

Interconnect Systems recently installed the first ever minicable solution in Africa, along with over 100km of single mode fibre optic cable, for longstanding client Sasol.

The entire Sasol core upgrade was managed by industry veteran Theo van der Wath, senior project manager from Business Connexion.

For Interconnect Systems, the reticulation aspect of the project involved upgrading Sasol's pre-existing multimode fibre backbone at its sprawling 60km2 plant in Sasolburg, to a blown fibre infrastructure, with Pirelli's minicable. This was installed between the four primary distribution areas on the Sasol campus.

Minicable systems use small diameter cables, to deliver between 12 and 72 fibres per cable to provide unprecedented choice in network expansion strategies.

The option of installing further miniducts and, within them, the right number of minicables to reflect changing business conditions, offers significant cost savings and gives operators tremendous flexibility in planning their networks. Over the past two years in particular, mini duct systems have become increasingly popular in Europe, with over 20 000km of minicable already installed in France alone.

Van der Wath, who directed the upgrade so that it complied with Cisco's Best Practice Campus Model, gave the blown fibre and minicable technology the thumbs up for several reasons.

"These systems offer the most flexible pay as you grow architecture available. Also, operators can defer all but essential capital investment in the network, building directly according to today's need, then simply increasing the fibre count if required later. Also, because the network has been designed to offer the client full redundancy, in the event of one of the fibre links going down, cable repairs can happen behind the scenes. Network users won't notice a thing. And this will also hold true for future upgrades." What made this a particularly interesting project was the fact that after Interconnect
had built the routes and installed the infrastructure of straw like tubes, the actual bundles of blown fibre and minicables were blown in with compressed air at speeds of up to 86m per minute.

At the end of the project, which ran from March to November, there were accolades in store for Interconnect. Project manager, Arnout Malherbe and his crew not only achieved a 100% safety record, they also reduced the overall cost of the project by R6 million. So all were  presented with excellence awards by Sasol's Steering Committee Chairman.