client: Ledcor Industries
location: Trans Canada and United States
project description:
R.V. Anderson Associates Limited (RVA) is providing the engineering services to Ledcor Industries Inc. for the development of a major fibre optic transmission system (F.O.T.S.) across Canada and throughout portions of the United States.
Inspired by the recent changes in telecommunications regulations, RVA worked with Ledcor, a Canadian based contractor with over 10 years of experience installing fibre optic cables, to develop the concept for a National F.O.T.S. that Ledcor would construct, own and resell to telecommunications carriers.
The first phase of this system, is a link between Toronto and Vancouver, located primarily on Canadian National and Canadian Pacific Railway rights-of-way. This fibre optic system consists of a series of rings with nodes in Toronto, Winnipeg, Calgary, Edmonton, and Vancouver. A portion of the route also runs through Minnesota, Wisconsin, Illinois, Indiana and Michigan.
The design of the ring system provides telecommunications carriers with route diversity in the event that disruptions occur on one or more of the links. The main beneficiaries of this design-build project are long distance telephone service companies. Telecommunications companies that have purchased fibre bundles from this F.O.T.S. build include Bell Canada, Call-Net and Metro-Net.
The cable was typically installed using a ploughing technique, in which reels of armoured cable, 20 mm in diameter, were ploughed directly into the ground at a depths of 0.9 m to 1.2 m. Ledcor has adapted to the railway environment by designing and patenting "track-mounted" equipment for the ploughing operation. In some areas, high-density polyethylene conduit, 32 mm in diameter, was installed using the same technique and the fibre optic cable was later "jetted" into the conduit using a compressed air system. The use of ploughed conduit(s) instead of direct ploughed cable, provides added flexibility in terms of future use. To date, the ploughing equipment designed by Ledcor is capable of ploughing as many as 10 conduits or cables at one time.
RVA's scope of work in this multi-year design-build venture with Ledcor, includes design of the fibre optic cable system and related ancillary equipment, preparation of design drawings, design of communications shelters which house signal regeneration equipment, obtaining federal, provincial and local level approvals, such as those required at road crossings and field inspection and quality assurance of the F.O.T.S. construction.
The Toronto to Vancouver phase of work involved over 7500 km of fibre optic cable route and over 3200 approvals. The cable installed was generally a double armoured cable comprised of 48 individual fibre strands.
project status:
Construction of the Toronto to Vancouver phase of the project was completed and carriers will begin lighting up the fibres. Ledcor Industries Inc. has now formed a dedicated telecommunications design / construction company - Ledcor Communications Ltd. and together with RVA, they are continuing the development of F.O.T.S.'s in other areas throughout Canada. |
