Prysmian connects Colchester with super-dense fibre cable for super-fast connectivity

The new, highly reliable broadband service provides customers with speeds of up to 1Gbps, both upstream and downstream. No traditional connectivity solution is capable of this level of speed or consistency. 

To make this possible, Colm Coyle, managing director of Rio IT and designer of the installation, ‘searched high and low’ for a cable that was up to the task. 

“The challenge was that we needed to find a way of bringing the existing cable infrastructure forward more than 20 years, in a way that would not be outdated for a long, long time – if ever,” he explained. 

“The target was to reach 7000 people with a new super-fast fibre system, inserted into the existing duct system, which was built mainly to operate CCTV cameras around the area. They only require a relative handful of fibres. For this task, we were going to have to squeeze around 500 individual fibres into a 16mm diameter duct, which means we actually only had 9-11mm of space inside the tube. 

“I feel like I searched the planet for the right cable; I needed the densest possible fibre cable to be able to achieve a great result on this project. Finally, I found Prysmian and specifically their 552 Sirocco HD fibre cable, which was the only solution. It is a magnificent find.” 

Colm specified 26 kilometres of 552 Sirocco HD fibre cable for the project, supplied by Fusion Utilities, to be installed by Scotech in a ring around the city. This particular cable, a new product from Prysmian, is made up of 552 individual G657A2 fibres, with a fibre density of up to 10.5 fibres per mm2. It utilizes Prysmian’s BendBright-A2 200µm single-mode (ITU-T G.657.A2) bend insensitive fibre, allowing it to retain enough flexibility to be bent around tight corners without being damaged.

“Fibre cables don’t like to be bent,” explained Colm, “The number of tight bends that this project presented meant that the new cable had to be blown down the duct at a high enough air pressure that it could make it around 21 right angle bends.”

The apparatus for blowing the cable was set up at three points, one of which was the Town Hall, from where 26km of cable was blown along the existing duct route, right around the city. The installation was completed with minimal disruption to the community, with no road works or loud maintenance.

The first blow was 1200m, around eight bends, followed by three 1000m blows. The longest ‘directional blow’ of the whole project was 1650m, with the longest overall section length reaching 2170m, or over two kilometres.

“This was a significant project for Prysmian as it required the use of a brand-new product, which was successfully installed with no issues,” said Adrian Austin, UK Sales Manager for Telecom at Prysmian Group UK. “Further to this, Colchester is now just the second area in the UK to have this system installed, and Colchester City Council, who commissioned the project, is delighted.”

“The 552 Sirocco HD fibre cable is awesome,” commented Colm, “It’s really easy to handle and about a quarter of the weight of other fibre cables of a similar capacity. Truly an outstanding piece of engineering.”

The project was completed in December 2021, giving the people in the city of Colchester super-fast connectivity almost immediately.