OT: Below grade fiber interconnect points

Thu Nov 14 02:04:40 UTC 2013

On Wed, 13 Nov 2013, Roy Hockett wrote:

> Thank you for comments. Let me clarify the situation.  We have a building that has been fiber cross connect
> location and is being demolished.  This location has about 20 fiber cable entering where we patch between
> fiber paths.  If we relocated these cross connect field to another building and that build is demolished we have
> to do this all over again, so the desire was to have an independent facility for the fiber cross connect field, but
> I am guessing due to esthetics the below ground vault was selected, we just learned of this selection and thus
> my query to this group to find other that have dealt with similar situations and if so, experience base recommendations,
> and things to be aware of.

If the vault has a controlled environment and access, similar to what you 
would find inside of a comms room, that's one thing.  If it's more like a 
typical manhole (damp, dirty, dark, possible temperature extremes, other 
utilities/hazards), then the only thing that should be in there is a 
water-tight splice case.  Fiber patches need to be in a clean environment.

Did this project provide any funds for relocation or replacement of the 
communications facilities that would be lost due to the demolition?  We've 
gone through this many times on our campus.

jms