Guns light up home fibre.

Byline: Clive Akass

Guns light up home fibre

A US firm claims to have solved the single biggest problem preventing the widespread use of fibre-optic networking -- by taking a gun to it.

The gun fires a ferrule attached to an optical fibre, which then travels along ducting until it reaches a terminator box. The ferrule, which doubles as a plug, slots into the box to provide a network access point.

There is a similar connector at the other end of the fibre, which comes in standard lengths. Spare fibre is simply left on a reel, which hooks on to a special pole on a gateway box.

Each access point needs its own unshared link, so fibres radiate from the gateway as a star network. The single physical constraint is that, like standard Ethernet cable, ducts can have bends no sharper than the curvature of a coke can.

The joy of the system is that it avoids the very tricky business of terminating the optical cable, which requires expensive tools and training, according to Ken Weller, chief operating officer of the UK arm of developers Tenvera. "I got the hang of this after just a couple of days," he said.