How FutureFLEX Works

FutureFLEX Cost Savings

FutureFLEX Applications

Why Choose FutureFLEX^® Air-Blown Fiber^®?

FutureFLEX's advantages over other fiber optic infrastructures are overwhelming. Consider the following benefits to determine why FutureFLEX offers the most advanced and cost effective system available for the current and future needs of your network. FutureFLEX, a point-to-point infrastructure, enables you to:

Scale your network immediately, control network capacity, optimize conduit space, meet your bandwidth requirements in minutes, save significant labor and overall project costs, and upgrade your network at the exact pace of emerging technology.
Quickly and easily blow in any fiber type when and where you need it, taking advantage of "fiber on demand" to meet any network add, move, change, or reconfiguration in minutes or hours versus the days, weeks, or even months of pulling in traditional fiber optic cable. At speeds of up to 150 feet per minute 3,000 feet of fiber can be blown with the FutureFLEX system in just 30 minutes, using only 2 installers. It typically takes one 8-hour day with a minimum of 4 skilled installers to pull 3,000 feet of fiber optic cable.
Blow fiber bundles quickly and easily even in hard-to-reach, limited access, or secure areas.
Install fiber without any disruption to your facility or network operations, eliminating the need for construction permits and unnecessary network downtime.
Plan network expansions, changes, and additions without the cost or guess work of accurately forecasting future fiber requirements and the opportunity and the wasted financial costs associated with laying either too much or too little "dark" optical fiber.
Eliminate the risk of having installed obsolete fiber that no longer meets your network's growing requirements. FutureFLEX allows you to immediately upgrade your network while protecting it against potentially rapid obsolescence.
Save your initial fiber investment. With FutureFLEX, fiber bundles can be blown out quickly and easily and replaced with a new fiber type in virtually minutes — allowing you to reuse the old fiber for another application in your network.
Plan projects in hours or days, instead of months or years in advance — allowing you to have total control of your plans and budget by Paying-As-You-Go… one project at a time.
Control network capacity by optimizing conduit space. Two 19-tube air-blown fiber cables yield 38 pathways within the same conduit space in which conventional cables yield only 3 — ensuring that you should never again face the cost or need to lay additional conduit. Also, you know with complete certainty at every moment how much capacity you have left for the future expansion of your network.
Increase the reliability of your network through FutureFLEX's splice-free, point-to-point infrastructure by eliminating the risk of fiber damage that can occur when pulling conventional cable and decreasing attenuation for maximum signal integrity.
Enjoy the freedom and network control that FutureFLEX offers, eliminating the headaches of forecasting technological changes and the future requirements of your network so you can pursue the other demands of your job — knowing that with FutureFLEX you will experience instantaneously quick upgrades, fast project turnaround times, elimination of construction coordination, less downtime, and lower departmental costs with continuously positive ROI.

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How FutureFLEX Works

The easiest way to understand the full range of benefits offered by the FutureFLEX Cabling System is to understand how it works.

Instead of pulling standard cable, the FutureFLEX Cabling System uses a patented blowing method. A compact fiber bundle, available in a variety of configurations, is blown through a tube, the pressure source is either compressed air or bottles of compressed nitrogen, at speeds of 100 to 150 feet per minute to anywhere in the LAN you want it to go.

The heart of the system is a highway of tube cable that is installed in place of traditional innerduct. The tube cable replaces conduit, innerduct and pull boxes. It contains from 1 to 19 individually numbered tube cells — each with an internal diameter of 6mm — inside a tough, outer jacket. A variety of tube styles is available, with versions designed to meet the requirements for use in plenum, riser, general purpose and outdoor applications. In fact, virtually every installation or application environment is covered. Outside plant FutureFLEX cables are designed to inhibit water intrusion and can be steel armored for direct burial applications.

FutureFLEX Air Blown Fiber is easy to install. It makes turns easily and installs simply into an existing conduit infrastructure. Once the tube cable highway is in place, the fiber installation takes only minutes, with minimal labor. Spare tubes are added during the initial installation. So any time you want to add fiber or make changes in the network, you easily can. The blowing method and tube design allows you to change the network simply by blowing the fiber out, rerouting the tubing at patching intersection points and blowing the fiber back into the new network configuration. The process is simple, fast and keeps installation costs down to a fraction of what they would be to pull new fiber optic cable.

FutureFLEX ABF uses the same type of glass as conventional fiber optic cables, as well as the same connection and termination. It complies with all premises networking media standards. It has been tested to meet TIA/EIA 598 and ICEA 596, which includes all mechanical and optical requirements. In addition, it meets UL 1666, Riser, and UL 910, Plenum. The FutureFLEX fiber optic cable is smaller than comparable conventional fiber cable, typically 1/40th the size. There’s no pulling force with air blown fiber installation, which means there is little chance of damage. This eliminates the need for bulky strength elements, fillers or tensile strength members found in traditional cable.

The fiber bundles have an aerodynamically designed jacket. The specialized material that sheaths the fiber bundle provides an irregular surface, much like the dimples on a golf ball that catches the air to propel the fiber through the tube. The equipment and accessories necessary to install the FutureFLEX ABF system are minimal. A blowing head, pressure source tank, tube cables, fiber bundles, TDUs and FTUs, connectors, and patch cords are about all it takes. With FutureFLEX ABF, two people can install one mile of cable in 45 minutes. With conventional cable, it takes six to eight people from two to three days at a minimum to pull a single mile of cable.

At each patching intersection, tube cable cells are joined in a protective housing called a tube distribution unit (TDU). TDUs can be placed wherever a fiber termination cabinet would be placed and can take many forms, including wall-mounted boxes for indoor use and watertight boxes with splice cases for out-door use. The TDU provides an access point for connecting tube segments and for future rerouting of the system. It’s this point-to-point system that eliminates splicing except at the end points — saving time and money.

FutureFLEX Cost Savings

As you’ve probably already surmised, reducing significant cost is a major benefit of FutureFLEX fiber optic infrastructure. FutureFLEX significantly reduces labor as a prime cost component, generally saving you at least 90% of the labor costs associated with the fiber installation of a conventional fiber optic cabling system...yielding you continuously positive ROI.

Once the tube cable pathway is installed, it typically takes only 20 to 30 minutes to blow 3,000 feet of fiber, taking only two installers blowing at speeds of 100 to 150 feet per minute. The time and labor savings is overwhelming when you consider that pulling 3,000 feet of conventional fiber optic cable takes, on average, a full 8 hour day using 4 skilled installers

Network moves, adds, changes, and reconfigurations can be achieved with FutureFLEX in a matter of minutes or hours rather than days, weeks, or months as is typical with a conventional infrastructure.

However, the cost savings with FutureFLEX just doesn’t stop there. Since the FutureFLEX architecture is point-to-point with a continuous fiber run, it eliminates the need to splice at transition or branching points. Instead, using simple push-fit connectors within tube distribution units (TDUs), installers can quickly and easily route or reroute fiber to new locations in a matter of minutes. Eliminating splicing points (except at final termination locations) reduces the possibility of fiber damage and attenuation, resulting in greater network reliability without additional labor costs.

There is no need to buy additional dark fiber to future proof your network. Instead, you install the exact fiber counts you need, when and where you need it.. You don't need to have a lot of excess capacity sitting dark for years — and that dark fiber type may not be what your network demands when the time comes to utilize it. Inherently, FutureFLEX eliminates the financial risk of having installed too much fiber, which results in wasted dollars and the risk of having installed too few fibers, which leads to expensive retrenching and installation costs. Also, with FutureFLEX you install the "right" fiber type the first time, whether your immediate needs require multimode, single-mode, or 10 Gigabit 50-micron fiber. As your day-to-day needs change, simply blow out the old fiber and quickly install new fiber in a matter of minutes. You can reuse the old fiber in another application…allowing you to preserve your initial fiber investment.

Furthermore, FutureFLEX's point-to-point infrastructure greatly minimizes network downtime at your operation or facility, which for manufacturing entities can equate to saving millions of dollars per year.

Since the FutureFLEX infrastructure offers fiber on demand, it eliminates the time and headaches of forecasting, planning, and budgeting the future requirements of your network. Once the tube cable pathway is in place, blowing any type of fiber is quick and easy, eliminating the need for construction permits and obstruction to your site. Instead, FutureFLEX facilitates quick project turnaround times and reduces network downtime…all of which saves you valuable time that you can now invest in other aspects of your job —making you and your department increasingly more productive and cost effective.

Applications

FutureFLEX ABF will support several cabling topologies simultaneously. The network can be designed to fit the specific needs of each user group, regardless of their application requirements — from physical ring to bus, star or hierarchical star topologies.

With FutureFLEX ABF, you also benefit from improved bandwidth, RFI/EMI immunity and the increased distance capabilities of fiber. Few cabling products have undergone more complete testing than the FutureFLEX Cabling System. It meets not only optical performance, but also mechanical performance requirements for the fiber and the tube cable.

The FutureFLEX system meets the rigorous and comprehensive quality control programs instilled at Sumitomo Electric Lightwave Corporation, a leader in fiber optic manufacturing. The system complies with all premises networking media standards, including the mechanical and optical requirements of EIA/TIA 568 and ICEA 640. Furthermore, FutureFLEX meets UL 1581 (General Purpose), UL 1666 (Riser), UL 910 (Plenum) and IEEE 802.3ae (Gigabit) standards. Sumitomo's manufacturing facilities are both ISO 9001 and TL-9000 certified.

FutureFLEX ABF takes the guesswork out of network planning and provides the broadest possible range of application support — from data applications to the newest applications like Facility Management Systems, video systems and life and safety systems. It is economical to install, flexible to manage, and responsive to your current and future needs. Based upon its numerous benefits and quality, FutureFLEX is being widely adopted, with major installations such as the Pentagon, Canadian Mounted Police and House of Commons, CNN, ESPN, Starbucks Coffee, The Getty Center, Mayo Clinic, Johns Hopkins University, Atlanta Motor Speedway, Lowes Motor Speedway, McCarran International Airport - Las Vegas, United Airlines, Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport, Nissan, and a host of other installations spanning numerous vertical industries.