FutureFLEX® Air-Blown Fiber® Safety

Solving the Safety, Security, and Infectious Disease Control Concerns of Today’s 21st Century Networks

• It’s an advanced optical fiber system that at speeds of up to 150 feet per minute quickly and easily blows any type and amount of fiber in and out of the network, even in hazardous, limited access, secure, hard to reach, and sanitized areas
• It’s non-disruptive with fiber installations, upgrades, expansions and any moves, adds, and changes done safely  behind the scenes in telecom or communication rooms
• It’s a system that defies the capabilities of traditional cabling by eliminating construction work and  re-entrance into conduit, ceiling tiles, secure areas etc. for fiber installations, upgrades, reconfigurations and expansions - resolving safety hazards, unnecessary downtime, and potential fiber damage for critical automation processes and physical security
• It’s a clean system that complies with ICRA (Infectious Control Risk Assessment)  and Joint Commission standards to create a patient safe and infectious disease controlled network for healthcare facilities, thereby eliminating HEPA filtration systems, NAPEs, patient moves, and other safety measures and their associated costs
• It’s a system that eliminates the screening of large installation crews, vital to the security and safety of government & military and power grid network applications

At Sumitomo, we’re resolving the limitations of existing technology to bring innovations that yield real solutions that solve real problems.  Traditional cabling systems are disruptive to the physical facility and its daily operations by requiring large installation crews who must lift ceiling tiles, re-enter conduit, and re-access secure and hazardous areas to install or pull fiber optic cable, make bandwidth upgrades, or complete any network move, add, or changes.  This old technology is not only costly and archaic, but poses unnecessary safety risks.  With FutureFLEX Air-Blown Fiber, those days are over.

Here are a few of the many examples of how FutureFLEX Air-Blown Fiber contributes to resolving the safety and security concerns of its customers:

Con Edison
Con Edison facility was transitioning their automation control systems from copper to fiber due to electrostatic interference, while dealing with an existing pathway that was convoluted and hazardous, high over live equipment, and very congested. A FutureFLEX redundant backbone pathway was installed.  Fiber was quickly and easily blown requiring no construction crews for even the most hard to reach and secure areas, allowing Con Edison to upgrade new monitoring equipment and transformers whenever they wish without the safety concerns, hazards, delays, and downtime associated with conventional cabling systems. FutureFLEX also eliminated security concerns of screening installation crews per NERC (American North Electric Reliability Council) vulnerability and threat provisions, since FutureFLEX required neither construction work nor construction crews for upgrades and other network projects as is necessary with traditional cabling systems. FutureFLEX also provides faster restorations, ensuring that Con Edison is up and running in a fraction of the time. With FutureFLEX, Con Edison is literally ready for anything!

Sharp Healthcare
The clean and non-disruptive FutureFLEX system  eliminated the time consuming and costly infection control preparatory processes that conventional cabling must undergo when entering conduit, walls, and especially ceilings in order to accomplish fiber installations, upgrades, and MACs.  Potentially toxic mold spores and airborne pathogens lie dormant above ceiling tiles or in walls until disturbed, posing direct threats to immune-deficient patients and to highly sanitized areas.  Although conventional cabling systems use HEPA filtration units and NAPEs (negative air pressure enclosures) to help reduce the chances of infection, they cause other patient safety disruptions, such as moving patients, crowding hallways, and interrupting the critical work of healthcare staff.  FutureFLEX Air-blown Fiber not only eliminated construction work and disruption at Sharp Healthcare, but also eliminated the time and cost of the infectious disease control procedures that often add 20 to 40% to the total project cost.

Also, in one of the many installation projects for Sharp, 12 strands of multimode fiber had to be installed between 2 buildings in the Sharp Memorial Hospital Campus to improve FA (fire alarm) system operation. An extensive duct bank system with manholes runs throughout the campus.  Manholes are near a busy loading dock and in access areas to an important hospital administration building.  Not only did FutureFLEX Air-Blown Fiber save 73% of the project costs of traditional cabling, accomplishing the installation in 27 versus 168 hours, but it had also eliminated the closing and blocking off of the loading dock for staff and visitor safety that would have been necessary with a conventional cabling system. 

Davis Monthan
The challenges facing Davis Monthan Air Force Base in Arizona were how to install, reconfigure, or upgrade fiber without physical access into highly secured areas in order to physically separate their major networks including SIPRnet, NIPRnet, COIN, and A/V.  With FutureFLEX, the solution was quickly and easily achieved.  Each of the 450 workstations received one FutureFLEX 4 or 7 tube cable depending upon the requirement (traditional cabling would necessitate pulling four different cables to the same location ).  Each tube within the cable was then easily designated to a particular network and visual separation was made by utilizing various colors of fiber bundles.  Any future adjustments in the mix of classifications as requirements change are fast and easy to make by blowing fiber underneath the floor without physical access to the secure areas.  Had a traditional cabling system been adopted, physical access to the secure areas would have been necessary.  Accessing the raised floor would have required the complete shut down of entire sections of the building, as well as posed risks to the  safety of the mission critical secure areas, which is possible when any area is physically accessed and disturbed.