It's 5 AM. Do You Know Where Your Robots Are?

aihacker writes "This New York Times article talks about a robot that lays fiber-optic lines in city sewers. What a brilliant way to bridge that "last mile"!" We've run a few stories about wiring (is that the right term for running fiber-optic cable?) cities for broadband, but the actual procedure is pretty interesting.

Comments

alternatives

[mirko]

The problem with cable is that it requires massive production of physical medium, so the idea would be either:

• to re-use an existing "cable-based" connexion (which is basically what Alcatel aimed the DSL technology at - FYI, I was working with them on that project).
• to use another kind of hertzian connexion in which case the impact on the cities infrastructure is far less important. I have also been working with an ISP whith whom we managed to set up a radio-based network in Arabia (with up to 40Mb/sec over 50 kilometers).

The final possibility would be to use the electrical network to communicate : There are actually some possibility to transfer data along with electricity with very good (xMb/sec) transfer rate.
it seems that it was not widely developped in France because of the government reluctancy to have a company (Electricite de France) concurrencing one another (France Telecom)...
--

Link w/o registration.

[shaka]

Article without registration.

heh

[JediTrainer]

a robot that lays fiber-optic lines in city sewers, is that the right term for running fiber-optic cable?

Not on a first date. Unless the robot's a real machine (wink}

Now when the ground's shaking, you won't be automatically thinking that it's the subway.

Re:It has to be said...

[jilles]

Not to mention "network congestion" or "packet loss" :)

IP?

[tmu]

This gives IP a whole new meaning! :-)

(can't take credit for that one--one of our sys admins at work came up with it when we were discussing Citynet, who are laying fiber in Albuquerque right now).

Re:Do you really want Fiber in the sewers?

[lizrd]

I'm not sure shit and data share the same kind of transport media ;-)

I don't know. Seems like a fitting way to send certain data if you ask me.

Don't click on the link...

See, I told you not to do it.
_____________

Ferrets

[Quila]

How about running cables by pet ferret? Costs only a few treats.

I could contract my three out to some IT companies and make a bundle.

The term is 'blowing fibre'

[Bazzargh]

At least in the UK, the phrase used in the industry is 'blowing fibre' - since compressed air is used to move the cable through the ducts.

Keeping up with everybody elses poor taste jokes: I reckon there's plenty of folk blowing fibre into the sewers already...

Anyway what I'd like to know is, what do they do about the rats? Rats are a major problem for cables, they have a taste for indigestible plastic. I can't remember the figures but in a large chunk of maintenance was because of rats chewing through cables. And if theres one thing I'd expect to find in sewers, its rats. Though seeing as its New York, maybe the alligators have eaten them all....

-Baz

Re:The term is 'blowing fibre'

[Bazzargh]

Whoops: '...in < the major telco I used to work for > a large chunk...' dammit I must use preview more.

Re:The term is 'blowing fibre'

[tmu]

The fiber is all put on the top of the sewer (the steel rings snap into place and have brackets for steel conduit above and the fiber goes in that).

Re:The term is 'blowing fibre'

[Klaruz]

These cables aren't 'blown', they're layed with a robot who inserts a ring inside the pipe, and then attaches the small metal pipe that the fiber goes in.

The small pipe is used to prevent things like rats, even though there aren't many in these kind of smaller pipes they use, and corosion.

After all that is layed, then the fiber is 'blown' through the small pipes. (I believe, they may just do it all at once)

There's alot of information on their website.

poor performance

[oingoboingo]

talks about a robot that lays fiber-optic lines in city sewers.

well this would certainly give new meaning to the oft muttered phrase "the network is performing like shit today"...

Slack boxes?

[seanmeister]

Somebody has to get the robot into the manholes, to build in the "slack boxes" that allow the connections from the fiber-optic network into buildings

Slackboxen? Cool!
Sean

They're just now MAPPING the sewers????

[brink]

The article said that in the process of laying the fiber, the city gets a map of the sewers... Maybe this is a bit obtuse, but shouldn't the city already have a map from installing the sewers in the first place?

What's the deal? Is there some sort of rogue group of sewer builders secretly installing new runoff drains or something?

That's just wacky.

This is too funny!

[AFCArchvile]

Verizon won't even let their minimum-wage techs venture into the NYC sewers, yet CityNet, a new company, is sending a million-dollar robot to lay fiber-optic lines!

Who else finds this funny?

Re:This is too funny!

[Sabalon]

Read the article. It's in the New York Times, but the deployment is in Albuquerque.

Besides, it sounds like Verizon cares about their employess then! :)

Re:Rigging Crew/

[NMerriam]

Donatello, Raphael, Leonardo, Michaelangelo

Only problem is child labor laws for hazardous work -- remember these are TEENAGERS we're talking about!...


---------------------------------------------

*YAWN* again

[Pig Hogger]

The french PTT have been doing precisely that for the last 100 years or so.

And they don't need robots to do that.

Actually, a joint venture with the french railroads and the water company will compete with the PTT: they use railroad right-of-ways to lay cable between cities, they put the switches in train stations, and go the last kilometer though the sewers (also) used by the water company.

--

"No-dig" technology

[Animats]

If you're really into this, the generic term is "no-dig" technology, and there's a trade association (The International Society for Trenchless Technology) and a trade show (No-Dig 2001, in Prague).

There's a whole range of technologies for putting stuff into the ground without disturbing the surface. The two main categories are schemes for re-using existing underground assets, and microtunneling. Both tend to involve some degree of teleoperation.

Kerr Construction has a good site on microtunneling.

Alligators vs. Robots

[billstewart]

New York - are you kidding? The robots had better be pretty well-armed to deal with the Alligators in the Sewers. On the other hand, simply using alligators might do the job. Or alligator-shaped robots.

Re:Do you really want Fiber in the sewers?

[rde]

So what happens when half time of the superbowl comes and everyone flushes their toilets?
I'm not positive about this, but I seem to remember reading about a new type of fibre that doesn't have holes in the side to let contaminants in. This is the sort they'll probably use.

Of course, it'll need to be specific. If they design it to filter shit, then thousands - nay, millions - of AOLusers will suddenly find their emails bouncing (sorry; BOUNCING).

Rigging Crew/

[Colvin Burgess]

I can picture it now. Big company execs hiring head hunters to find the perfect sewer broadband cable layers. Resumes are submitted:

Perfect Team...

Donatello, Raphael, Leonardo, Michaelangelo

They work well in a sewer environment. Salary is pepperoni pizza. Very skilled with tools and have unique techniques to move effectively throughout the sewers. Only draw back is that appear only to only lay April.

Project Manager Splinter, gifted with experience and wisdom, this wily guy co-ordinates this freak team.

It has to be said...

[TheOutlawTorn]

This gives a whole new perspective to the term "laying pipe".

ducking thrown tomatos

This isn't new ...

[charlie]

Back in 1982, the British government privatised the telephone system (as British Telecom) and began phasing out their monopoly. A competing company -- Mercury Telecom -- decided to get into the game by providing high bandwidth trunk connections through London. Their problem was that BT owned all the main cable ducts and weren't going to cooperate willingly.

However, someone at Mercury got smart. They remembered an ancient power distribution system: back in the late 1880's some factories ran on compressed air, pressurized to hundreds of PSI, and distributed through cast-iron pipes from central steam-powered compressor stations. Long since obsolete (shut down in the 1910's), the pipes were still in the ground!

So Mercury engineers built small robot pigs and used them to lay fibre-optic cables right through the heart of the capital city without digging up any roads -- using the pipe network that time forgot.

Now we hear about New York using the same system -- but of course, nobody remembers where it came from!

Even better

[BrK]

Considering that we're talking about pulling fiber in sewers, it seems that this rat: Rattie would be a more appropriate method. However, this story is from '97, and considering the average life span of a rodent, Rattie may be pushing up daisies now.

Dachshund

[alexburke]

The NYT article likens the robot to a cross between a dachshund and a Hoover. Fitting, no?

Out of sheer morbid curiosity, I fed "dachshund" to Babelfish, asking for German to English translation, and got:

dogdog dog

Fitting, no?

--

As the romans said:

[morie]

Pecunia non olet (money doesn't stink).

Well, at least the next time you see your connection speed drop after you flushed your toilet, you know what happend: more "traffic" down there.

Just what I've been waiting for

[PhilHibbs]

I can just plug the cable straight into my java ring-piece!

guidance?

[thistledown's name]

lets try this again, it crashed netscape last time.

What kind of guidance are they giving these robots? Radio/camera or pre-programmed plan? If it is radio, thats often a lot of rock and metal to go through, and radio isn't too fond of that. If it's pre-programmed, what contingencies does the program allow, such as a dead rat or a bird nest in the way?

It would be nice if they could do this in San Jose as well, but most of Silicon Valley used lots of pipes instead of large tunnels for their sewer system, (we came later so we learned from the mistakes in sewer design made in the east coast and europe, looks like we were a little short sighted) so I don't think they'd be able to put the fiber down there.

Laying it down

[deran9ed]

I had an ex co-worker who laid down Fiber for the New York Stock Exchange, and I remember him telling me the steps they took to do this.

According to him the New York City Transit Authority was paid a hefty amount of money to blow dark fiber through its train tunnels.

He said for a few weeks he along with transit workers would begin late at night, early in the morning, and go step by step through the tunnels. I recall him saying it was a pain staking process since it carefully had to be set as to avoid any remote thought of all kinds of problems, kinks, high electrical interference etc.

Blowing fiber through the sewer sounds like a neat idea, but I wonder how exactly is it set as to avoid any acts of nature such as, chemical compounds of all sorts of crap in the sewer which can affect it. (hint acids built up from excrement)

Its an extremely expensive task, and I wouldn't want to be the one down below doing it.

CIA bullies a Jew

I am the pusher robot

[Trepidity]

It's 5 AM. Do You Know Where Your Robot Are?

Yes. They are here to protect you. Please stand by the stairs so they can protect you. From the terrible secret of space.

Get your time right.

[divide_by_0]

The story was posted at 4:00 am according to the post time, not 5:00 am.

I dont know what time zone your in, but in mine its definatly not 5:00 am yet

Wait a sec, what the hell am i doing up this late anyway?? Im going to bed.