Once the cable is pulled, the fiber has to be terminated so it can be patched. There are two ways to do that, and the choice is usually made by how confident you are in the measurement rather than by cost.
Fusion splicing
A pigtail is fused to each core using a splice machine that aligns the two glass faces and welds them with an arc. The joint is protected in a sleeve and laid into a tray inside the LIU.
What it gives you
- Lowest loss — a good fusion splice is around 0.02 to 0.1 dB, better than any connector pair
- Cut to length on site — the cable is measured after it is pulled, so route surprises do not matter
- Repairable — a damaged run is re-spliced rather than replaced
- Any core count — terminate four now and the rest later
What it costs
- A splice machine and a trained operator, so it is specialist work
- Time on site — each splice takes minutes, and a 24-core job is a day
- Consumables: pigtails, sleeves, trays
Pre-terminated fiber
The cable arrives from the factory with connectors already fitted, tested and capped. It is pulled into place and plugged in.
What it gives you
- Speed — no splicing on site at all
- Factory-tested terminations, with a test report per link
- No specialist needed for the termination step
What it costs
- The measurement has to be right. Too short is unusable; too long has to be coiled, and coiled fiber is a bend-radius problem
- Lead time — it is made to order
- Pulling risk — the connector end has to be protected through every conduit and bend
- Higher cost per link on small jobs
Choosing between them
Splice when the route is complicated or not yet fully surveyed, when the core count is high, when the run is in a building you will be maintaining for years, or when the schedule can absorb a day of specialist work.
Pre-terminate when the route is simple and measured, when the link count is small, when nobody on site can splice, or when the installation window is short — a data centre cutover, for instance.
What most Chennai projects do
Splicing, for one practical reason: routes here are rarely as measured as the drawing suggests. A conduit turns out to be blocked, a route goes the long way round, and the length changes. Splicing absorbs that; pre-terminated does not.
Either way, test it
A power meter reading at both ends is the minimum, and it is what tells you the link is within loss budget rather than merely passing light. On a backbone worth certifying, an OTDR trace shows where every splice and connector sits and gives you a baseline to compare against when something changes later.
We splice, terminate and test single-mode and multimode, and supply the pigtails, LIU enclosures, adapters and patch cords that go with it. Send the route and core count — fiber and OFC supply in Chennai.