Fiber optics technology became the most dominant technology in the field of high data rate communication, there is a huge trend towards it in the recent years, so in this report we attempt to design a fiber optics network in Nablus city that will offer some new services such Fiber to The Home (FTTH), in this process we must go over an important steps to achieve the goals of the design, firstly we choose relatively small region compared to Nablus city, here we choose Nablus Al-Jadida region, because of geographical and statistical aspects, then we plan the fiber route and calculating the fiber cable length, the next step is to choose the fiber cable based upon the application which is DWDM application, then we plan the fiber cable paths inside Nablus Al-Jadida region after we choose the topology to be ring topology, the future work will complete the whole design process by doing link power budget and improve the technical solution to get high data rates.
Fiber network design is a systematic process that aims to build a fiber optic network which is successfully installed and operated. This process must deal with many engineering, legal, health, environment and social issues. Of course designing fiber optic network requires strong background in the theory of fiber optics and transmission of data as light pulses.
The term optical fiber network refers to a telecommunication network with optical fiber as the primary transmission medium. This network makes full use of the unique attributes of the optical fiber. In the recent years there is a huge trend towards fiber optic communications, because it offers far greater bandwidth and less electromagnetic interference compared with the traditional cabling like copper cables.
Before fiber optic networks can be constructed, they must be properly designed and, once constructed, they must be managed. Efficiencies in these processes translate into lower cost layout and construction, more productive system migration and field operations, lower optical loss budget, and greater business profitability by bringing fiber to the desk.
The fiber optic network layout design plays an important role in error-free system reliability. Choice of the proper type of network layout depends on the type of process controlled, the possible need for expansion, and the degree of failure immunity desired–all of which must be balanced with cost considerations.
Fiber optic network design incorporates requirements for the communication needs for the user, where the cable plant will be routed, what performance cable plant will have to have, what components need to be used to build it?, what the installation process that need to be used?, what needs to be tested? And what needs to be documented, when the network is finished.
Fiber network design involves work with different peoples such as network owners and managers, architects and engineers who may be in charge in large construction projects, licensed contractors who will do the work, consultants who will design various aspects of the system that include communications, manufactures who will supply the products and distributors who will buy the products and delivers them to the sites.
People who do the design work must have an in-depth knowledge in the topics of fiber optic components and systems, fiber optic installation process, appropriate standards, local codes and regulations.
The design process must take into consideration the life time of the network and the backward compatibility with the preinstalled network and the evolution planning in the future.
The key problems that necessitate carrying out the work described here can be summarized as follows:
a) Identify the stages of the fiber optic network design process.
b) How to apply the steps of the design practically.
c) What is the specification of the network design in terms of services to be offered to the
customers and how to make the project economically efficient?
d) What is the main restriction and limits that will affect the design process in terms of
legal permissions and the available components in Palestine...etc.
e) How would we test and evaluate the actual performance of the network?
Motivation for Carrying out the Research
One of The objectives of our project and report are to gain experience in team working and to practice many aspects of Scientific Research, Web Search and Technical Writing. Benefit from the error and how to correct it.
The main factor that motivate us to do this project is to help in solving a special engineering problem in Palestine that affects our social environment, in Palestine we want to keep pace with the information revolution, and this requires us to be updated in accordance to technology that is existed, we must ask questions like what is available to the customers in our country in terms of communication services like Voice Over IP (VOIP), video conference, cable TV and Fiber to The Home (FTTH), these services will make a quantum leap in the technology in Palestine.
About Telecommunications in Palestine
In Palestine the telecommunication field still has not kept pace with the other developed
countries in this major, until now there are many advanced services that did not reach Palestine either in the field of wireless communication like broadband communications (3G and 4G) or in the wired communication like FTTH.
We will concern about the wired communication and in particular FTTH, in these days, there is only one Internet Service Provider (ISP) that offer internet services and telephony services that is PALTEL, the main internet service that PALTEL offer is Asynchronous Digital Subscriber Line (ADSL), which is a shared technology and use the telephony network to achieve an internet connection, where the voice and the data are being transmitted over the same media, the sharing percentage is either 1:12 (twelve subscribers shares the one internet connection) and this recognized as business ADSL service or 1:24 (fourteen subscribers shares the one internet connection) and this recognized as Home ADSL service, so in ADSL there is a need for a filter to split the data from the voice and there is a need to identify the priority of the services in some cases.
However there are some companies, banks, universities and governmental institutions that
need a huge bit rate or internet speed in addition to other services such VoIP, and in the cases of banks they want to connect their branches over the Palestinian cites, so they want to have dedicated service that will not be affected by the surprising problems and hence PALTEL company offer for them these services with higher costs than the shared services (such ADSL) with higher reliability and quality, but these services is more precious than that can be paid by the customers because the network infrastructure that could give these needs is not exist, in this project we introduce a futures study to achieve the goal that is the FTTH service.
The internet poles are located in Europe and North America, mainly in British kingdom, Germany (Frankfurt city), and Sweden.
PALTEL reach the internet backbone in Frankfurt city in Germany by their strategic partner the Turkish Telecommunications Company (PANTEL) through the submarine fiber cable, the cable starts at Haifa city and then it take two paths, the first one is the main cable and it go to Catania in Italy, while the other cable will be the redundant cable and it will go to Turkey to Istanbul city and then the two cable will continue to reach Frankfurt city, the fiber cable that connect Med1 site to Frankfurt will be under the responsibility of PANTEL company, this fiber cable costs million of dollars for just two hair pair of fibers in this cable (one for the main route and other one for the redundant route).
Notice that PALTEL Company get only 15 Gb/s from the internet backbone that is used for West Bank and Gaza Strip.
In this project we design a fiber network for the Sothern rejoin of Nablus containing Nablus Al-Jadida, Alamriya, Al-makhfiyand Paltel company region by making the basic routes and determine the most needed components to establish the network, also make an economical study for these components.
In the future we advice others to continue at the same way to complete remain regions in Nablus City and getting a total planning of fiber network to cover all needs of customers.