Verizon uses 3M’s One Pass for MDU fiber

HOUSTON -- Using a combination of the adhesive technology for which its parent company is best known and its fiber optic cable expertise, 3M Communications’ Market Division has introduced the One Pass Fiber Pathway, a multi-cable drop solution that is almost as easy to install as a strip of adhesive tape.

In a demonstration here Tuesday night, a two-man 3M crew demonstrated the ease of deployment at a mock apartment hallway, similar to the hallways Verizon crews are now wiring in New York City, Philadelphia and Pittsburgh, among other places, said Jay Borer, business manager for 3M’s fiber and premises network solutions. It took only a few minutes and two short step stools to enable the cable to be installed along the crown molding at the top of the corridor, where it was unobtrusive, and a few minutes more for one technician to use a mechanical field mount connector to create the drop for a specific apartment.

By creating an aesthetically pleasing drop cable that can be easily mounted in older apartment buildings, with curved walls, signs, moldings and other potential obstructions, 3M wants to enable installations to be handled routinely by smaller construction crews without requiring extensive training or more costly splicing procedures, Borer said.

“Typically, the optical equipment is in the basement, and a construction crew will bring the fiber up the riser to each individual floor,” Borer said. “Then in the central corridor, you will put in crown molding or a plastic cable raceway that will house the 3-millimeter drop cables. Today that is a four-man operation that takes up an entire day to do a single floor – it’s basically carpentry. We are trying to put this in the hands of the construction crew, using pre-connectorized factory-terminated drop wires into the fiber distribution terminal on the other end and a mechanical field mount connector” at the tenant end.

What Verizon had asked for, Borer said, was a solution that was aesthetically pleasing, easy to install and therefore cheaper to install, less intrusive to tenants who don’t like construction noise and deployable in a matter of hours, not all day.

“We have gone out with Verizon and their building acquisitions team and met with building owners or homeowners’ associations, where Verizon hasn’t been able to get an agreement on a solution for deploying the fiber,” Borer said. “Once they saw our solution, they were able to get an agreement.”

The 3M One Pass Fiber Pathway can be painted over, to be even less obtrusive, and can more easily wrap around Exit signs or other obstructions, Borer said.

“We think this will be a solution not just for MDUs but also for schools, hospitals, dorms and other places where in-building fiber will be needed,” he said. “This is especially targeted at older construction where there aren’t dropped ceilings or duct work available.”

The system is in field trials in Asia, Europe and the US, in addition to Verizon’s use, Borer said. “We have seen significant interest.”