Fiber Optic Design
Pick the right outside-plant fibre cable from a real manufacturer catalogue, filtered on fibre count, installation method, armour, sheath, temperature and duct clearance, with aerial spans checked against the datasheet sag and tension table.
Choosing an outside-plant fibre cable is rarely about the fibre. The glass inside a 72 fibre loose-tube cable and a 72 fibre ADSS cable is the same G.652.D; what separates them is whether the cable can hold its own weight across a 450 m pole span, survive a termite-heavy trench, fit the sub-duct you already have in the ground, and meet the fire rating the building demands. Those are mechanical and environmental questions, and they are the ones this tool answers.
The selector reads a catalogue of real manufacturer cables and filters them against what you actually asked for: fibre count, fibre grade, installation method, LSZH, rodent and termite protection, ambient temperature range and maximum cable diameter. Anything that fails one of those constraints is shown with the reason it failed rather than quietly dropped, so you can see how close the near misses were and which constraint is doing the excluding.
For aerial work the tool goes further. ADSS datasheets publish a sag and tension table covering an everyday stress condition and several severe wind and ice cases. The selector normalises those tables and checks your requested span against them, surfacing the sag, tension and cable strain at the worst condition that rates your span, and warning when you are inside ten percent of the longest span the sheet covers.
Every cable in the catalogue is evaluated, not just the passing ones. Failures are labelled in plain language, such as too few fibres, not self-supporting, span exceeds rating or too large for duct, so you can see exactly which constraint removed a cable and decide whether to relax it.
For ADSS cables the requested pole span is matched against the datasheet stringing examples at the worst rated condition. The tool reports span, sag, the vertical sag component under wind, tension and cable strain exactly as printed, and highlights the row it matched.
The commonest selection error is ordering a 144 fibre cable for a 24 fibre job. Scoring is weighted toward the tightest count that covers the requirement, then cable diameter and weight, so the recommendation is the one that does the job without over-buying.
Armour class, sheath class, rodent and termite protection are derived from datasheet prose that varies from sheet to sheet. The derived value drives the filter, and the original wording is shown beside it in the datasheet panel so you can always check what the manufacturer actually wrote.
Filter on maximum cable diameter for sub-duct clearance, and see estimated drum weight over your route length. Flat cables, which have no single nominal diameter, are flagged for manual checking rather than silently passed or failed.
The physical characteristics table is reproduced verbatim, including bend radii, crush resistance, pulling tension and maximum cable breaking load, alongside part-number templates, applicable standards and the manufacturer application notes.
Reach for the Fibre Optic Cable Selector in any of the following situations.
No, and that is deliberate. The outside-plant datasheets behind this library publish mechanical and environmental data only; the manufacturer holds attenuation figures in a separate optical characteristics document. Producing a loss number here would mean inventing data rather than sourcing it. Use the PON Optical Budget and Connector and Splice Loss calculators for the loss maths, using the attenuation for your chosen fibre grade.
ADSS datasheets publish stringing examples covering an everyday stress condition and several severe wind and ice cases, each with a span, sag, tension and cable strain. The tool normalises those tables, then finds the highest-tension condition that rates your requested span. If no condition covers it, the cable fails on span. If your span is within ten percent of the longest rated span, it passes with a warning to confirm with a manufacturer sag and tension calculation.
Several cables are ordered as a part-number template where a wildcard selects the fibre type, so one product covers single-mode and multimode variants. In that case the tool does not claim a fitted grade, it lists the grades the code legend makes available and reminds you to confirm the grade at order.
They are derived from the datasheet wording, which varies considerably between sheets. The derived class drives the filters so that the catalogue is searchable, and the original manufacturer text is displayed beside it in the datasheet panel so nothing is hidden behind our interpretation.
Flat cables have no single nominal diameter, so a diameter comparison is not meaningful for them. Rather than pass or fail them on a number that does not exist, the tool flags them so you can check the cross-section against the duct yourself.
Not without a separate support system. ADSS cable is built to carry its own weight between poles; loose-tube and micro-core cables are not self-supporting and would need lashing to a messenger wire or a catenary. Selecting an aerial installation therefore fails non-ADSS constructions.
Use the Request a cable button in the tool. Submissions go to the catalogue maintainer with your notes and, if you attach one, the manufacturer datasheet. Accepted cables are added to the shared library for all users.
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