It’s very valuable as a cable, but as material, it’s worthless. Pull on it to hard, give it a rough bend, cute it anywhere, and it isn’t a cable anymore.
They just cut it roughly, strip back the protective layers, then do a very precise and clean cut on the actual fibre and polish the end.
Most of the time it will get spliced into a patch panel (instead of being installed into the patch panel). At which point the cleanly cut fibre is precisely aligned with the fibre from the patch panel, then melted together.
It’s very precise. Splicing tools often use extremely high magnification, and very precise actuators to align the 2 fibre ends before they are fused
If it’s a break in the middle of the fibre, then they will use an epoxy housing for the splice.
I don’t know the specifics, but something like this:
Cut/clean up the break, put through an epoxy housing and tighten the cable grips. Strip back the protective layers, clean cut the fibres and splice them all appropriately. Carefully stuff it inside the epoxy housing, fill with epoxy and let it set. Then burry/rig it again.
Those are what the large plastic cylinder things you see on cables are.
Similar housings are used for splicing copper (both data and high voltage) cables that have to withstand elements/burying, just the size (and possibly internals, epoxy type etc) change.
Black plastic cylinder that’s larger than the cable, with a couple cables coming out? Probably a splice point
The difference is that your average crackhead/tweaker copper thief knows a sketchy scrap yard that will pay them a discounted rate for the copper cable and not ask any questions. It’s unlikely they know where to unload stole fiber optic cable.
The sign is less to discourage theft than to prevent damage by copper thieves who are unaware of the difference and attempt to steal the cable.
Copper cables are easier to reuse or sell as scrap due to the intrinsic value of the metal value and simple structure. Fiber optic cables are harder to reuse because they require precise handling, expensive connectors, and special training and equipment to splice together properly. Unless thieves steal pre-terminated fiber and handle it with extreme care or take entire spools with a buyer ready, fiber is essentially worthless to them since it can’t be melted down and reused like copper.
How valuable is optic fiber “cables” anyway? 🤔
It’s very valuable as a cable, but as material, it’s worthless. Pull on it to hard, give it a rough bend, cute it anywhere, and it isn’t a cable anymore.
Resist the urge to put kitty stickers on fiber optic cables. Got it.
Now I’m curious, how DO they cut it to size?
They just cut it roughly, strip back the protective layers, then do a very precise and clean cut on the actual fibre and polish the end.
Most of the time it will get spliced into a patch panel (instead of being installed into the patch panel). At which point the cleanly cut fibre is precisely aligned with the fibre from the patch panel, then melted together.
It’s very precise. Splicing tools often use extremely high magnification, and very precise actuators to align the 2 fibre ends before they are fused
Cool, always wondered how they fixed our Internet line with it being fiberoptic.
If it’s a break in the middle of the fibre, then they will use an epoxy housing for the splice.
I don’t know the specifics, but something like this:
Cut/clean up the break, put through an epoxy housing and tighten the cable grips. Strip back the protective layers, clean cut the fibres and splice them all appropriately. Carefully stuff it inside the epoxy housing, fill with epoxy and let it set. Then burry/rig it again.
Those are what the large plastic cylinder things you see on cables are.
Similar housings are used for splicing copper (both data and high voltage) cables that have to withstand elements/burying, just the size (and possibly internals, epoxy type etc) change.
Black plastic cylinder that’s larger than the cable, with a couple cables coming out? Probably a splice point
Cutting it is the easy part, splicing them back together is the real trick.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fusion_splicing
Some very expensive tools for termination and splicing
Not very. Worthless if cut into short lengths.
A thief who rips a bunch out of a construction site or similar won’t be able to sell it for anything, if that’s what you wanted to know.
Only the connectors and the skill to weld them on are expensive.
The cable itself is just glass and plastic with some shielding.
You can take this and install your own fiber to home. Free unlimited internet.
Extremely
So instead of copper cable theft, they’ll just steal the optic fiber cables then… 🤔
The sign isn’t helping lol
The difference is that your average crackhead/tweaker copper thief knows a sketchy scrap yard that will pay them a discounted rate for the copper cable and not ask any questions. It’s unlikely they know where to unload stole fiber optic cable.
The sign is less to discourage theft than to prevent damage by copper thieves who are unaware of the difference and attempt to steal the cable.
Copper cables are easier to reuse or sell as scrap due to the intrinsic value of the metal value and simple structure. Fiber optic cables are harder to reuse because they require precise handling, expensive connectors, and special training and equipment to splice together properly. Unless thieves steal pre-terminated fiber and handle it with extreme care or take entire spools with a buyer ready, fiber is essentially worthless to them since it can’t be melted down and reused like copper.
That assumes you can sell it. Chances are it will be worthless once you remove it.
Maybe they’re harder to resell illegally
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