In general, people building networks are working on 40 years as a minimum, and some are expecting it to last 100 years. But some people think that fibre lasts only a couple of decades.
Fiber optic cable manufacturers who say cables are designed for approximately a 40 year lifetime. The glass fiber is good for millennia, of course, as long as the coatings remain hermetic, but the plastics used in the cable will have a shorter lifetime. This lifetime only applies to a cable, which can be compromised by damage to the cable during installation (cuts in the jacket, pulled with excess tension, kinked by bending around a smaller radius that specified for the cable, etc.) In addition, you have the lifetime of splices and terminations and any other hardware involved.
Another factor in the lifetime of fiber is that it needs no maintenance. Connectors are effectively sealed from dirt in patch panels, and splices are sealed in enclosures that prevent moisture from entering. There is no need to disconnect terminations to clean, inspect or test them. When fiber optic networks were first installed, some users did inspect them, probably out of curiosity, causing problems by allowing dirt to contaminate connectors or overstressing components by handling them.
The biggest cause of failure is damage – from “backhoe fade” -digging up buried underground cables – or “target practice” on aerial cables. Roughly 20 to 25 years is the commonly accepted timeframe when fiber optic cable is laid in the ground.
Optical fiber cable has been in commercial use for almost 30 years. With the rapid spread of 4G networks, China, India and other Asia-Pacific countries’ demand for optical fibres in the field of telecommunications broadband is expected to have a substantial growth. Fiber Optic cable is an emerging field and still will be widely deployed.
In conclusion, the quality of installation and maintenance is a large influence on a fiber’s operational life.
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