Cut fiber optic cable - what to do?

The optical fiber is made of glass, which is immediately associated with fragility. In practice, the optical cable, thanks to proper manufacturing and multiple shields, is not as susceptible to damage as it might seem, but physical interruption of the medium can happen. What to do then?

Fiber optic cable repair cost

Fiber optic cable is essentially a thin (0.25mm) fiber made of glass or plastic. For protection, it is housed in plastic insulation and additionally braced. Pooled optical cables can consist of up to dozens of individual fibers, but in the context of Internet access in homes and businesses where our fiber optic router, we will be dealing with a single wire.

If a malfunction happens to us, the cut fiber can be repaired by welding the ends together again, but due to its microscopic thickness, this is almost impossible to do at home and without specialized equipment. Since a "fiber optic splicer" costs several thousand zlotys, repairing a fiber optic cable yourself the cost involved is difficult to justify.

How to repair a fiber optic cable

If the part of the link, belonging to the operator's infrastructure, is damaged, that is, usually the cable "coming out" from the wall and ending in a plug or, better, a socket, we must ask our provider for help.

And how to repair a broken fiber optic cable, belonging to our home or business part of the installation? As we mentioned, without specialized equipment, repairing a fiber optic cable on your own is unlikely to succeed. It will be much easier and cheaper to replace it with a new one, especially if the operator's network is terminated on our side with a socket. In good electronics stores and on the Internet, you can buy almost any type of optical cable ("patchcord") of the desired length for a dozen - a few dozen zlotys. When selecting a cable, we must pay attention to a number of parameters, which we describe in earlier posts.