Optical fibre cables carry Internet traffic around the globe and provide us with broadband connections to our homes and businesses. But those same cables have an important role apart from high speed communications.
A technique known as distributed acoustic sensing (DAS) can detect changes in environment around those cables and indicate where those disturbances are occurring. For example, DAS applied to a submarine cable can detect vibrations caused by trawling and dredging or nefarious activities of states wishing to disrupt international communications.
A water company in the UK is using Openreach’s fibre broadband cables to detect vibrations caused by water leaks. AI assisted machine learning is used to pinpoint the exact location and distinguish between other causes of vibration such as traffic or roadworks.
DAS works by monitoring optical pulses as they are reflected back from natural microscopic inhomogeneities in the glass – an effect known as Rayleigh scattering. Changes in the refractive index of the fibre caused by vibrations affecting the cable create changes in the phase of the reflected signal. The time taken for the affected signal to return gives an indication of the position of the event.
Rayleigh scattering is just one of the topics explained in PTT’s online course “Optical fibre principles“. This course is an indispensable primer for those joining the telecoms sector to maintain the broadband connections we all rely on.

The telecommunications sector is facing a labour shortage and a technical skills gap. The situation can only worsen over time as it is estimated that over 60% of the telecoms engineering work force in the UK are past the age of 50. Apart from the inevitable shrinkage in the workforce, remaining staff may not have kept up to date with the radical technological changes that have affected the industry in this century.

These challenges are exacerbated by the pressure to expand the coverage and capabilities of fibre broadband access due to customer expectations, increasing competition, and government targets.

The solution comes in two parts: re-skilling the existing workforce and recruiting and training young people.

Apprenticeships provide a structured, all-encompassing method of inducting new staff. Governments in the EU and UK actively encourage apprenticeships with financial inducements and other support especially for small and medium enterprises (SMEs).

The UK’s Telecoms Field Operative apprenticeship scheme is designed for those who will build and maintain fixed line broadband access networks. PTT has developed a range of online courses that cover the knowledge objectives of that apprenticeship standard. This unique resource provides training delivery flexibility and reduced costs that benefit employers and training providers while ensuring teaching is of a consistent high quality.

The latest PTT online course “Working in access networks” joins those PTT courses already providing targeted, relevant training for field operatives.

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The UK mobile operator EE has announced that its 5G standalone (5G SA) service now reaches two thirds of the UK’s population. 5G SA provides lower latency and higher speeds than conventional (non standalone) 5G since it isn’t partly reliant on existing 4G infrastructure.

With a feature referred to as network slicing, 5G SA also offers differentiated services where a service can be tailored to the specific requirements of an industrial application or group of users.

For example, Vodafone recently carried out a trial of network slicing to provide mobile coverage at a Wales versus Ireland rugby match. One “slice” provided a service suitable for video sharing and other data heavy activities for those in a hospitality area while another gave guaranteed upload speeds for official photographers that were unaffected by more general mobile activity in the area.

Industrial applications that require ultra-low latency and high security may prove to be the biggest beneficiaries of 5G SA with network slicing. These include those that employ robotics, autonomous guided vehicles, and a high density of networked smart devices such as cameras, sensors, and actuators that remotely monitor and control industrial processes.

You can keep abreast of mobile technology development by studying PTT online courses including “4G and 5G radio access networks” and “Advanced mobile systems“