Corning is releasing a new microcable, claiming it will help enterprise network operators install or upgrade their fiber networks more efficiently and with “minimal disruption.”
Katherine Asbeck, Corning’s in-building market development analyst, told Fierce the microcable benefits operators with networks in “fast-moving industries,” like airports, hospitals, manufacturing facilities and universities – especially those with 24/7 operations.
“They can air jet this fiber rich, flexible solution to increase their bandwidth, expand network applications and overall improve those daily operations,” Asbeck said.
The MiniXtend Plenum Microcable has a flexible, flame-retardant outer jacket and comes with either 12 or 24 colored fiber strands per unit. According to Corning, the cable’s small design allows it to be used as an alternative to traditional indoor cable if it’s installed via an airblown method.
“If you think about a hospital, where there’s operational downtime, that can lead to safety risks even from dirt or debris,” Asbeck explained, noting the cable can be easily installed in space-constrained areas.
The same goes for something like a manufacturing facility, in which operators need to think about “the potential of unplanned network downtime.”
“Obviously a lot of these facilities have operations installed to try to mitigate against those risks, but that’s still a risk of long system downtime,” said Asbeck. Such risks can lead to production standstill, with the facilities incurring “significant financial losses.”
And at an airport, that downtime would “not only affect the people at the airport, [but also people] relying on that system in order to get where they need to go.” These are a few scenarios Corning is trying to mitigate with its new microcable.
The MiniXtend Plenum Microcable is also all-dielectric, meaning it requires no grounding or bonding. The cable can operate in temperatures ranging from 32 degrees Fahrenheit all the way up to 158 degrees Fahrenheit.
Corning plans to showcase the cable at the 2023 BICSI Fall Conference and Exhibition, which will take place in Las Vegas this month.
The vendor will promote the cable alongside Dura-Line, which will be presenting a new series of microducts – small conduits that help operators push fiber deeper into their networks.
The combination of the MiniXtend Plenum Microcable and Dura-Line’s microduct system is “just a good fit,” according to Asbeck.
“Especially with traditional networks, a lot of pathways you’d see in a building are typically pretty crowded and pretty interconnected…so it can be kind of hard to do an upgrade just navigating that space,” she said. “So this provides a solution to pre-install a series of microducts and [the cable] to be jetted easily through it.”
This story has been updated to correct the spelling of Asbeck's name.