Fiber
To The Antenna (FTTA)
Objectives:
From this self-study lesson you should learn:
- How
FTTA
systems are designed
- How
cabling connects all elements of a FTTA
cellular antenna system
- What
types of cabling (copper-fiber hybrid) are used in
FTTA
systems
- Issues
in installing and testing FTTA
cabling.
Introduction
Wireless
traffic is growing at a phenomenal rate. AT&T says
their cellular data traffic grew 80,000% (that's 800
times) between 2007 (the introduction of the iPhone)
and 2017. The landscape is covered with cellular
towers to provide geographic coverage, but to handle
the growth in traffic, they need more antennas. Towers
that one had 3 antennas now have one or two dozen to
cover all the new frequencies.
There are two issues we cover in our FTTA
material that affect every cell tower or cell antenna
installation (such as on the roof of a building.) The
increased number of antennas require more cables up
the tower and smaller, lighter fiber cables are
replacing the old big, heavy copper coax cables. Then
the towers need to connect into the phone system and
the towers need more bandwidth in their connections,
so those connections require fiber backhaul.
This course will deal primarily with FTTA but will
also discuss fiber backhaul, more appropriately
covered under the topic of OSP fiber. Fiber U has an OSP
fiber optics course also. The course covers how
fiber to the antenna systems are designed, installed
and tested. The information provided should be useful
to the tech doing the installation, their supervisors
and management involved in cell tower systems.
Safety is a big issue on FTTA installations. Besides
the usual concerns over fiber safety, there are the
issues associated with climbing towers and doing work
up in the air. Some of the processes developed for
FTTA are designed to make installation easier but
safety planning and training (OSHA in the US) for all
personnel is very important.
Assignments
You
will be instructed to read the references or watch videos
and take the quiz (Test Your Knowledge) to complete the
"classroom" part of the course.
Get
Started
Watch
The Video
FOA
Lecture 37 Fiber To The Antenna (Cellular
Towers)
Read
The Online FOA Reference
FOA
Reference Guide,
Fiber To The Antenna
FOA
Reference Guide, Testing FTTA
Test
Your Knowledge - FTTA
Cabling - Quiz
Lesson
Plans
Read
the materials or watch the videos linked on each lesson
plan and take the quiz.
Lesson 1:
Overview - How Wireless Networks Use Fiber Optics
Lesson 2: Fiber To The Cell Site And
Fiber To The Antenna
Lesson 3:
Distributed Antenna Systems (DAS)
Lesson
4: Small Cells
Lesson 5: WiFi -
Enterprise, Urban and Rural
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