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Gilbert Lodge   Since 2004

                 Gilbert Lodge Blog
         The life and times of Mark and Paula Persons

May 24, 2010:  A construction crew showed up in the neighborhood to put optical fiber lines in the ground for telephone, television, and the Internet.  Here, a boring machine pushes a 2-inch diameter rod through the ground.       

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A workman is out in front with an instrument that detects where the bore head is and how deep it is.  He can pinpoint the location within a few inches.  The reel of orange tubing (conduit) on the trailer is pulled into the bore hole afterward.   

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The bore head is unusually shaped, but it allows the operator to steer and even make gradual bends.  It is capable of going 800 feet underground.  

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Part of the work was done with a narrow plow which puts a slit through the ground while pulling a conduit.  

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Finally, some was done the old fashioned way by digging a ditch to run the conduit.

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In the end, a cable with 24 tiny optical fibers was pulled in the conduit.  You can see just a few of the fibers sticking out of the end of the cable.  The immediate promise is for 5 Mb up and down speeds on the Internet using just one fiber when it is all connected in a month or so.  That speed can be increased many fold depending on how much the customer is willing to pay. 

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