Armouring internet cable under grave driveway

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You have a point. They're both electromagnetic waves, just one's a much higher frequency.
Fibre optic is not electromagnetic it is light and emits no radiation waves, it is a passive path of communcation (for the most part depending on how technical it's application). If you say it is the same as wifi you might as well include two tin cans and a piece of string and say it's all the same, communication between two points as a catch all. Fibre is a communication link between two points of connection and cannot change, wifi will connect to as many points as the particular piece of equipment will allow.
 
Fibre optic is not electromagnetic it is light and emits no radiation waves, it is a passive path of communcation (for the most part depending on how technical it's application). If you say it is the same as wifi you might as well include two tin cans and a piece of string and say it's all the same, communication between two points as a catch all. Fibre is a communication link between two points of connection and cannot change, wifi will connect to as many points as the particular piece of equipment will allow.
https://byjus.com/question-answer/why-is-light-an-electromagnetic-wave/#
 
There is no answer to that is there, I was talking about the real world not trying to split hairs.
I'm surprised. You seem to know a lot about this stuff, but light and RF are essentially electromagnetic waves in the real world. And I never said that light was the same as WiFi...
I was, however, being flippant.
 
Is light a wave or particulate: discuss for a century or two. Newton, Huygens, Young, Einstein, and many many more have all had a go at it. The accepted answer is that its sort of a bit of both - a particle that behaves like a wave. Fire the photon torpedos, Mr Sulu. Take us out of here.

But, back to the OP.

He has a utility supply to his house. That supply runs under a driveway that he plans to do some work on, essentially adding grids and compacting. That utility could have been gas, water, copper phone wire, electric cable or even an output tube for raw sewage, but in this particular case its fibre optic cable. He wants to minimise the risk of damage to that cable but its not practical to disconnect, lift, sleeve and re-lay becsue we infer that it is on the "supplier's side" of his doubtless very fine modem and router.

It's a practical question, not a theoretical physics question :)
 
I don't see it as Chalk and cheese as they both do the same job, communicate between two points.
You cannot put your WiFi router in the street before your property so you have to have it in your home. THE CABLE, WHICH DOES THAT, TERMINATES ON/IN YOUR BUILDING. You then connect to that termination. Optical and WiFi ARE NOT the same, even if they move the same data!
 
Don't forget to lay a warning tape over the length; "cable below"...

I believe the argumentative poster simply doesn't understand WiFi, FTTP and VoIP or is trolling.

FTTP terminates in the customer premises at an optical network termination (ONT) box which needs permanent power - there may be a small fibre junction/optical coupler box on the outside or inside of the premises where the network provider's (NP) external armoured cable changes into a more manageable fibre cable with a smaller bend radius. The ONT typically provides a gigabit ethernet output via a CAT5e/CAT6 RJ45 female connector which then is connected to the customer router - this may the customer's own router, e.g. from TP Link, Ubiquiti etc. or a service provider's (SP) router e.g. a BT SmartHub. WiFi etc. is downstream of the ONT.

The ONT and everything upstream of it are the exclusive responsibility of the NP and the customer must not interfere with that kit. Splicing fibre, whether single or multi-mode, requires specialised training and very expensive kit.

The issue here is straight-forward:
  • The customer has FTTP
  • The customer cannot & must not interfere with the cable
  • The cable crosses the customer's driveway
  • The customer wants to resurface the driveway without damaging the already buried cable
Pretty simple really - it's a civil engineering problem and nothing to do with exotic physics.

I would do something like use an inverted French Drain channel or one of the other split-conduit options, but the main thing would be to bury the cable as deep as you can and surround it with a soft, uniform, medium like sand - electrical cables should be a minimum 450mm below ground (with a warning tape above). There are no hard-and-fast rules for fibre, but the deeper the better and a conduit is an extra plus... and DO put a warning tape above it!
 
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I assume the Trolling comment above was directed at me, I obviously do not understand the problem, your service provider runs a fibre optic cable into your property and terminates inside your home/office, its at that point you attach a WiFi router to distribute the service to wherever you want? What am I missing?

I note that you have edited your post No 49 above witch originally was only two lines and added four paragraphs since my post No 50, to put it simply you did not understand the problem until I posted the above comment and now want to make it look as though you did, and you accuse me of trolling. 🙄
 
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I have installed FO cable for security in Industrial areas. The Cable is passed through a tube/containment to prevent heavy vehicles from squashing/damaging the cable and the noise/impact from affecting the signal. So install a tube with poss 1" bore under your driveway. Whack all you like and then pass the cable through.
 
If I would set out to address this issue I would typically aim for overkill and future proofing. Thinking along the line of running a split (on table saw) along a 32mm waste pipe, enclose the cable, seal split with duct tape, deepen & widen trench and encase pipe in concrete with a couple of lengths of rebar. Total overkill I know but I'd never worry about oil delivery lorry or a load of concrete blocks in the future.
 
What am I missing?
Nothing really because the major difference is that with copper you are only dealing with electrical signals but with fibre you need to convert the optical signal into electrical which is where the ONT comes into play, I think of it as a modem that handles light transmision. At this point you have electrical signals suitable for your router and now WiFi but being old school I like to use hardwired via network switchs anyway as Fibrus use an Amazon Eero router with only a single port.
 
I assume the Trolling comment above was directed at me, I obviously do not understand the problem, your service provider runs a fibre optic cable into your property and terminates inside your home/office, its at that point you attach a WiFi router to distribute the service to wherever you want? What am I missing?
What you are missing is that it is the bit in bold which runs under the drive.
 
OP, are you sure the fibre-optic cable isn't already armoured? It seems unlikely for a professional installer to put it in just 6" down, under a gravel driveway, un-armoured.

If it is armoured, then (I believe) it should be fine to surround it with sand, ideally with some caution tape above it. If you can, leave it un-touched.
 
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