OPMC

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CHAPTER 2 OUTSIDE PLANT MAINTENANCE CENTER

2.1 Introduction

Outside Plant Maintenance Center functions are Data and voice Services & provide connections and services to all customers island wide. All maintenance and rehabilitation of the SLT services are handled by the OPMC. Under the manager OPMC; there are several groups in the section. They are new connection team, Asynchronous Digital Subscriber Line (ADSL) team, maintenance team, under ground faulty correction team and Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA) faulty correction team.

Today most of the telecommunication service providers are introduce new connections and facilities. But if there are complain for faulty of the equipment customers have to face lot of problems. So the SLT divide their functions in to two categories OPMC and Customer Service. OPMC handled buy the Manager/OPMC and Customer Service section handled by Regional Telecom Office Manager (RTOM).

Both OPMC and Customer Service sections have two systems for support their services to the customers. Those are Clarity for OPMC section and Geneva for the Customer Service section. Both systems are interconnected and have different interface for different users.

2.2 Structure of the OPMC


There are five main sections under OPMC manager. Planning and Analysis Fault and Rehabilitation

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New Connection Cable and Development Administrative

Each section is handling by an Engineer or an Assistant Engineer. Under them DIT and next IPT are carry out their works.

2.3 General Outside Plant Network


Outside Plant Network mainly deals with the connection from the exchange to the subscriber premises. The amount of equipment employed depends on several factors and obviously it involves very high costly equipments for providing underground ducts and manholes. Subscriber lines from the exchange are terminated at the Main Distribution Frame (MDF). This is mainly to allow easy configuration and testing of lines. These are then taken on a primary cable down to the cable vault and then through manholes to a cabinet, where they are terminated again. These lines are further extended on a secondary cable, through manholes and hand-holes to a distribution pole. A Distribution Point (DP) on the pole takes in 10 copper loops. These loops are then extended to customer premises via aerial cables and drop wires. This is illustrated in Figure 2.1.

The drop wire connects to a discharger at the customer premises. This is a protective device, included in the network to protect customer-end equipment. The output of the discharger is connected to a telephone via a rosette. At the customer premises the rosette should be fixed 50cm-150cm and discharger 150m from the ground level for proper working.

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LOCAL EXCHANGE CABINET Main distribution frame

DISTRIBUTIO N POLE

MAN HOLE

Discharger MAN HOLE HAND HOLE Secondary SIDE

Rosette

PRIMAR Y SIDE

Figure 2.1: Components of an OSP Network

2.3.1 Telephone
The circuit inside the telephone is mainly consisting of four sub circuits. Receiving Circuit : Electric signal is convert in to the audio signal and it sent through the speaker

Dialing Circuit: Handled by a special IC and it input is the voltage pulses which come out from the number pad. Pulse dialing or Dual tone multi frequencies are two method available for sent signaling for dialing process

Transmission Circuit: The audio signals coming out from the receiver convert to an electrical signal for transmitting in the copper wire.

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Bell Circuit: When receiver is lifted -48V connected to the line and circuit is complete. Then voltage is supplied to the line, which can penetrate through a capacitive load and activate the bell.

2.3.2 Rosette

Rosette can be considered as an interface between the telephone set and the discharger.

2.3.3 Discharger

Drop wire is connected to the subscriber premises through the discharger unit. The main purpose of this unit is to protect the telephone set of the subscriber from lightning damages. This uses the fuses and the arrestors. The discharger is connected to the copper earth rod through grounding wires

2.3.4 Distribution Point (DP)


Distribution point (DP) is the termination point between the Cabinet and the Subscriber. Each DP contains 10 subscribers. Drop wires are used to connect the distribution point and the telephone Subscriber premises through the discharger unit.

2.3.5 Man Holes/ Hand Holes


According to the dimension (diameter of the hole) these two are distinguished. Normally man holes are bigger than hand holes. One man can get down to the man hole and can do the repairs or joints of the cable.

2.3.6 Cabinet

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Cabinet is termination point between the underground cables coming from the MDF and DP side. Cabinet consist of two sides called primary and secondary. The primary side, which comes from the MDF, terminates at the tag block. By using jumper cables, according to the customer telephone number it is jumped to secondary side or DP side.

2.3.7 MDF (Main Distribution Frame)

The Main Distribution Frame (MDF) is the main cross connection point between the OSP cable pairs and the exchange. It provides a great flexibility for line testing functions as well as electrical protection. This is normally a rack of tag blocks, which are used for line termination.

2.3.7.1 Structure of the MDF


This is one of the flexible points in the lines running from the exchange to the subscriber end. The MDF is simply used for connecting outside plant and the exchange. Underground cables that are coming from different areas will be terminated in separate tag blocks in the line side of the MDF while the line side is arranged according to the geographical distribution of underground cables. There is a well-defined method for identifying all the cables from line side and exchange side. They are coded as A, B, C, , Z, and AA, AB, , ZZ. To avoid mistakes, when referring to these cable codes, words are used instead of letters. For example A, B, C, D and E are referred to as Arthur, Burty, Charley, David and Edward cables respectively. The arrangement of MDF is given in Figure 2.2.

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Underground Cables

Line/CUSTOMET Side Tag Blocks

JUMPER CABLES

EXCHANGE SIDE TAG BLOCKS

EXCHANGE EQUIPMENT

Figure 2.2: Structure of the MDF

Apart from the normal analog telephone lines, Data, Telex, fax lines, PCMs and digital pair-gain line termination units are also situated within the MDF. In addition to those lines the lines from other telephone operators are also terminate at the MDF. Also the ADSL tag boxes with POTs are fixed to MDF. To identify the normal telephone line, it is used red and white color code wires. As same as for data line is used blue, white combination. For the ADSL line, it is used black and white wires. At the MDF, fuses and lightning arrestors are used for protecting the exchange from outside surges and lightening. These are mainly high voltage fuses and Gas Discharge Tubes. Also Test equipments are fixed at the MDF as it is flexible point for testing. So the loop is disconnected and connected to their testing equipment to check the condition of lines (such as short circuit, cross connection, disconnection). These equipments are consisting of simple circuit diagrams.

2.3.8 Cables
Mainly there are two types of cables. Arial Cable

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Under Ground (UG) cable

Most of these cables are PVC jelly filled, in order to avoid water seepage into the cable and also to allow better heat dissipation (work as insulation material). Arial cables are strengthening by introducing steel wire attached to them. Normally copper is used as the conductor for those cables. Since a large number of wire pairs are in one cable, a color code is used for identifying each individual copper pair. According to the color code configuration there are two types,

PEUT (Poly Ethylene Unit Twin) Cable This also called the 25 pair color code cable, because Blue, Orange, Green, Brown, Ash combined with White, Red, Black, Yellow, Violet to create 25 pairs.

Quad Cable Combination of four cable used and every four cable consist of White, Brown and Black cable. Then other cable will be Blue, Yellow, Green, Red, Violet (or Ash) according to the no of pairs in a cable.

Cables of various conductor diameters are used depending on the distance of the subscriber from the switch. When planning a cable link, this diameter is important as it contributes to the signal loss along the line. The maximum allowable loss between an Exchange to a Distribution Point is 8 dB. The following Table 2.1 gives the typical values of these losses.

Table 2.3.8: Signal Losses in Cables

Diameter in mm 0.40

Loss per 1 km in dB 2.20

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0.50 0.65 0.90

1.75 1.33 0.93

2.4 New Connection


When a person wants to get a new connection, he has to apply through RTOM (Regional Telecommunication Office Manager). RTOM gives the reference number to the customer. It includes all the details with area code, cabinet number, DP number and loop no respectively as below. (KY/004/03/07)

2.4.1 Planning for supply new connection for the area Following steps are involved for this, I. Analysis the whole area using area map and count the no of subscribers who required new connection. II. Guess the possibility of increment of future requirements III. Design the way that the DPs are fixed and the number of cables that to lay down this area. IV. Design the HHs and MHs according to the above clarification. V. Design which type of pair cable should lay this area according to the geometry. VI. Cable laying is start from the exchange side.

2.5 Fault and Rehabilitation

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Fault rate and the Fault clearance ratio are the major quality factors in SLT to measure the customer satisfaction. It implies how much fault was occurred per year. To reduce these factors as much as possible is the main function of the OPMC. Call Completion Ratio (CCR) is another indicator which shows the completed call attempt rate during the busy hours. This factor considers both incoming / outgoing calls and Local calls.

CCR =

No of calls Answered Call handled (Incomplete call not counted)

Customer informed the fault by dialing the 1241 to the Main Branch of SLT in Colombo, the main branch inform it using the Clarity Software to the relevant MDF. According to the fault, the section assigns people to check the fault. Fault checking is always started from the discharger in the subscriber premises. At this point, he checks the condition of the line from MDF to discharger. If the line condition is good up to the discharger, fault may be in the Telephone set, Rosette, or Rosette cord. If the fault is continues up to the discharger condition of the line from MDF to DP is checked. So if the line condition is good up to DP the fault may occur in the drop wire. Likewise the fault is checked in different points such as cabinet, MDF Distribution side.

2.6 Pair Gain Systems


Pair gain system provide two, four or eleven entirely independent and permanent customer services on one standard metallic cable pair using elegant digital communication techniques.

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When the customer requirement has been increased installing a new copper cable is costly and time consuming. As a solution for this digital pair gain systems were introduce to the telecom network. Digital pair-gain system multiplies the capacity of the existing customer line by two, four or eleven. The system consists of Exchange unit and (EU) and Remote unit (RU).

RU
DEL 1 DEL 2 DEL 3 DEL 4

EU MDF ( 0 + 4)

Telephone 1

(0+4) PCM

Telephone 2 Telephone 3 Telephone 4

PCM

Cabinet D.S.L Figure 2.3: Network configuration with Pair gain System

DP

Advantages of Digital Pair gain system: Can provide several entirely independent and permanent customer services on single standard metallic cable No local power is needed at Remote unit

Disadvantages of Digital Pair gain system:

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Improvement in Cable faults due to the low insulation. So copper cables which are connected to the pair gain system in the RU, drives higher current.

Regular maintenance is necessary

2.7 Training Experience

I got the opportunity to be trained at Sri Lanka Telecom (SLT) as an undergraduate trainee for six months. In the very first day; we were assigned to the OPMC by the Training and Planning division. After discussing with the Manager/OPMC Negombo and Matara we got the opportunity to be trained at the several sections for four months. And also we discussed with the engineers and got to know about the training programme. Im very happy to say that I have completed a very successful training period at SLT. We got the opportunity of working as job trainees; and I participated for more than fifteen out station works with SLT technical officers. And also we got the opportunity to visit the following sections; while we were working at OPMC. They are; Padukka Satellite Earth Station, Pulse Code Modulation (PCM) section, SLT Broadband, Switching section. Apart from that we got the chance to pay our attention on Next Generation Networks (NGN).

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