ITU-T Study Group 6 Outside Plant Francesco Montalti

Contents Terms of reference Management Team SG Organization Statistics Highlights of achievements / Projects / FGs Workshops Future work Conclusions

Terms of Reference Responsible for studies relating to: “Outside Plant,such as the construction, installation, jointing, terminating, protection from corrosion and others forms of damage from environment impact of all types of cable for public telecommunications and associated structures”

Outside Plant physical environment

Management Team Chair Francesco MONTALTI (I) Vice-Chair Saf AHMAD (until 9/2003) (G) WP Chair WP 1/6 Daniel DEKKER (up to 4/2003) Shigeru TOMITA WP2/6 Stephen METTLER (up to 11/2002) Attilio REGGIANI (NL) (J) (USA) (B) TSB Paolo ROSA Isabelle GARDE COUNTRY: should be the letter acronym, e.g. USA, I (for Italy), J (Japan), etc, as used in the ITU list of participants Delete UNUSED rows in the PowerPoint table

Study Group Structure WP1 “Infrastructures and environment” New technologies for the construction of telecommunication infrastructures, innovative cable installation techniques, environmental and safety issues. WP2 “Application of products” Optical cables and associate hardware construction, optical access network deployment and maintenance, copper networks for shared multi-services.

Statistics (I) Meetings, Documentation, Participation Study Group meetings 6 Work by correspondence (EDH) Continuous White contributions 49 Delayed contributions 58 Temporary Documents approx. 400 SG mtg. participants: average 43 - max 53 - min 39

Statistics (II) Work Programme and Results Recommendations approved: total 24 - new 18 - revised 6 (Approval Procedure: AAP 23, TAP 1) Handbooks published 2 Questions assigned by WTSA-2000 10 Questions proposed for next period 9

Highlights of achievements (I) Optical cables and accessories A complete set of recommendations covering all the area of application of optical fibre cables were produced. They provide harmonized standards for cables to be installed directly buried (L.43), in ducts and tunnels (L.10 rev), aerial (L.26 rev). Recommendations L.13 rev and L.50 covering the requirements for passive optical nodes respectively for outdoor and indoor environments were developed in close co-operation with IEC SC86B. This two standards will harmonize performance requirements for optical node accessories around the globe. By applying these recommendations, a consistent quality level of network will be sustained, which will result in more stable and future proof optical network, a shorter time-to-market and lower product cost.

Highlights of achievements (II) Innovative installation techniques New installation techniques allowing faster and cost effective installations were investigated. As a result recommendations for mini trench (L.48), micro trench (L.49), air assisted (L.57) and floating techniques (L.61) were produced. Copper networks With the spreading of xDSL technologies and the deregulation in the telecommunication field, the proper use of existing copper cable assets is becoming of the outmost importance. L.19 deals with the techniques for sharing multiple broadband services in the same copper cable, while L.62 addresses the practical aspects faced by operators in the unbundling of copper access network.

Highlights of achievements (III) Optical Access network A set of recommendations regarding the introduction (L.42, L.52, L.58 and L.59) as well as the maintenance (L.53) of the optical fibres in the access network were produced. Marinized terrestrial cables A set of recommendations covering the area of marinized terrestrial cables (L.28, L.29, L.54, L.55) were issued, together with the publication of an Handbook. Environment and safety L.63 addresses safety items for personnel operating on the outside plant.

Outside Plant for the Access Network Workshops Outside Plant for the Access Network Hanoi – Viet Nam 24 November 2003 Attendance: 90 delegates from 15 Countries

Future Work (I) The responsibility for studies involving the physical aspects of outside plant will extend its scope to cover also building and home installations, in order to standardize the complete chain of cables for interoffice, access and related building and home applications. The name of the Study Group will be modified accordingly. In this framework SG 6 will take care, addressing also reliability and security aspects, of cable performances, field deployment and integrity of installation also for mixed transmission media, such as hybrid fibre/copper cables and novel media, such as plastic optical fibre cables. SG 6 will address the aspects related to the deployment of new services on existing copper network such as the co-existence of different services from different providers in the same cable, including the need of providing performance requirements of new copper cables designed to support higher bandwidth.

Future Work (II) The activity on the Local Loop Unbundling will continue, with the scope of providing the correct technical solutions needed to assure network integrity and interoperability in a context where operators can interact without affecting the Quality of Service defined by regulatory and administrative issues The activity on construction of infrastructures will address the investigation and standardization of all the new techniques that allow faster, cost effective and safer cable installation, taking also into account the environmental issues. It is foreseen the continuation of a strong cooperation wit ITU-T SG 15and IEC TCs 20, 46, 86. SG6 will continue the activities of support to developing Countries, organizing SG meetings and Workshops in the ITU Regions.

Conclusion SG6 provides standards for the physical infrastructure of the network, used for the transmission platform, and also its installation and maintenance. In this context its activity is transversal to the work of others SGs. Very good mix of expertise ranging from telecommunication operators, manufacturers, research centres, installation companies. Global participation from all the ITU-T Regions with a balance between developed and developing Countries. Ability to reach decisions and produce recommendations to meet market needs quickly.

Thanks to everybody !

Francesco Montalti Chairman ITU-T SG 6 Mr. Montalti received the Laurea degree with honours in Physics from the University of Rome in 1976. After some years spent at the Face Standard Central Laboratory as researcher, in 1985 he joined SIP, now Telecom Italia, working on the Industrialization of New Technologies and as responsible for the specifications of cables and the associate hardware used in the whole Telecom Italia network, participating in the activities of several standardization bodies.   Francesco has successfully chaired Study Group 6 (Outside Plant) since 2001. Under his leadership Study Group 6 developed Recommendations and Handbooks in its core competency areas for the network deployment, cable installation, operation, maintenance and restoration including devices and associated hardware giving useful advice and expertise especially to the developing countries.