ISE Magazine, August 2019

AUGUST 2019 WWW ISEMAG COM 49 UNDERGROUND DEPLOYMENT Encompassing over 50 thousand miles of phone Internet and CATV cable services the underground infrastructure network throughout the Greater New York City area is complex It serves 83 million residents 39 million workers 250000 businesses and 50 million annual visitors according to the NYC Department of Information Technology and Telecommunications Bedlam in the Bronx Mishmash in Manhattan Managing and maintaining that cable mishmash is the job of Steve Haus Foreman with the Hellman Electric Corporation and his crews With headquarters in the Bronx Hellman Electric Corporation is one of New Yorks largest utility contractors As a premier full service contractor Hellman installs and maintains outside plant services heavy construction corporate interiors and datacom projects throughout the metropolitan region Replacing nonfunctioning utility cable or installing new cable can be problematic With a power and telecom cable infrastructure for a city the size of New York and its boroughs its no wonder ducts in underground networks become over crowded Steve Haus and Hellman Electric had to find a better solution for conquering the conduit cable chaos Brute Force or a Better Option The ideal powered duct rod tool would be engineered to make short work of placing pulling lines or fiber optic cables through old partially collapsed and crowded ducts and ducts with multiple route bends When compared to traditional hand rod wire fishing practices where more human muscle is necessary fewer hands would be required as the entire process would be achieved with the use of a powerful hydraulic pump and the push of a lever This is important because there are some cable ducts that have multiple bends and they can become overcrowded As a result work crews must muscle through during cable placement procedures This brute force option is typically used in empty ducts observed Steve Haus If youre not careful power rodding can cause damage and destroy existing cabling in crowded ducts especially fiber optic cables he added We are working in an ancient system that was never designed for the capacity we are demanding of it and much of it can never be rebuilt or improved Haus observed For this reason rodder trucks that we used in the past are now useless for working in urban underground ducts Hand Rodding Can Be Counterproductive To avoid damaging fiber optic and other cables and for placing pushing or pulling lines Hellman also relied on fiberglass hand rods These non conductive rods are used for guiding or fishing wire or cable through ducts walls attics crawl spaces etc These rods come in many configurations but in street construction they are typically on large reels in lengths of 300 1000 feet Much to Haus dismay they have become the mainstay of Street Fiber Once needed only on occasion they are now often the only suitable tool available Being a working foreman Steve himself endures the same physical trials as his crew pushing these rods through multiple ducts on a daily basis Over time this method of hand rodding can become inefficient and Setting up the PDRP