Sterlite's Fibre Figment Saga

Sterlite Tech saw an opportunity to innovate its design and manufacturing process of G.657.A2 bend-insensitive fibre when France declared this fibre as standard for indoor and access network cabling.

‘Necessity is the mother of invention’, true goes the saying as some see opportunities in difficulties that encourages them to create something new. Sterlite Tech saw an opportunity to innovate its design and manufacturing process of G.657.A2 bend-insensitive fibre to address rapidly rising demands for indoor cabling from France and Middle Eastern markets.

Indoor cabling for high-speed broadband and fibre-to-the-home applications has specific requirements for minimal bend loss – loss in data transmission (attenuation) because of multiple bends in the cable. For indoor cabling in buildings, the cable also needs to be small, aesthetically pleasing and have the ability to be routed in very tight spaces – all without any data loss.

Challenges:
On the design front, the company faced the challenge to enable zero bend-loss for indoor cabling, while on the manufacturing side, with France setting 2025 as the goal to roll out optical fibre across the country, and declaring G.657.A2 fibre as the standard for indoor cabling and access networks, capacities had to be rapidly increased.

Impact:
Addressing the two-fold challenge, Sterlite Tech innovated on the design as well as the manufacturing process to scale up at the highest quality, thus meeting the rising demand from France as well as the Middle Eastern market.

In the new avatar, Sterlite Tech’s ITU-T G.657.A2 Fibre-Sterlite MICRO BOW-LITETM (E) Single Mode Optical Fibre features nearly 10 to 20 times lower macro-bending loss than that of G.652D fibres with the same bend radius of 10 mm. This product suits the market requirement of Access and FTTH applications, particularly in buildings and cables with high fibre counts and lower diametre micro cable.

On the manufacturing side, the company’s innovative approach resulted in increased volumes from 10,000 km/month to 1,50,000 km/month. The company has also filed patents on both design and manufacturing process for G.657.A2. Apart from increased volume supply, its design and manufacturing innovation also resulted in manufacturing process efficiency - reduction of process time from 7 days to 16 hours, significant reduction in scrap level and control in attenuation failure.