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

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.

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'

[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).

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"...

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: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!

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.