Wooden reels for telecom and fiber builders

The build-out that empties the reels

All 56 state and territory final proposals under the federal BEAD broadband program are approved. Together they plan about $18.19 billion of deployment across 3.79 million locations, roughly 62.9% of them to be served by fiber, as tallied by Broadband Breakfast. That sits on top of the fiber that cooperatives, cable companies, telephone companies and municipal networks were already building.

For a reel desk, that means a lot of outside-plant cable arriving on wood, being pulled into conduit, blown into microduct or lashed to strand, and leaving empty reels at contractor yards, county staging lots and pole-line laydown areas. The work spreads across rural counties, so the reels spread too.

Fiber reel sizes from one maker's guide

Superior Essex publishes the wooden reels it uses for outside-plant fiber in its technical guideline TG110: seven sizes from a 30x18x12 to a 96x42x48, with weights from 59 to 1,100 lb. Its capacity chart for the same reels shows how much cable each holds at two diameters. Its premises fiber guide adds smaller reels: plastic 12 and 14 inch reels and plywood 16x15x8, 24x18x12 and 30x18x12 reels from 5 to 28 lb.

Fiber is fussier about the drum than copper

A reel that is fine for power cable can damage fiber. The NEMA WC 26 minimums that Anixter reprints call for a fiber optic cable drum at least 20 times the cable's outside diameter and never less than 12 inches, and note that some makers ask for 30 times. Corning's procedure for cutting and respooling fiber sets a drum of at least 8 inches or 30 times the cable diameter, and warns that a smaller drum can increase attenuation and permanently damage the cable. Its appendix gives the minimum drum for each cable size, for example 11.8 inches for a 10 mm cable and 23.6 inches for a 20 mm cable.

Superior Essex marks the same limits on its chart: one asterisk where the drum is under 10 times the cable diameter, the minimum bend radius, and two where it is under 20 times, the recommended radius. That is why its 30 and 36 inch reels carry a double mark at 1 inch cable.

• NEMA WC 26: fiber drum 20x cable OD, never under 12 in; some makers ask 30x
• Corning SRP 005-051: drum at least 8 in or 30x cable OD; interconnect cables 8 in minimum
• Corning examples: 10 mm cable needs an 11.8 in drum, 15 mm 17.7 in, 20 mm 23.6 in, 25 mm 29.5 in
• Superior Essex: chart flags drums under 10x and under 20x cable OD

Aerial, underground and blown jobs leave different reels

How the cable goes in shapes what is left behind. Aerial crews lashing fiber to steel strand along pole lines work off reel trailers at the roadside and drop empties at each staging point, usually mid-size reels because a pole route is pulled in shorter sections between splice cases. Underground crews pulling through conduit or directional-bored duct favor longer continuous lengths, so their empties run larger. Crews blowing cable into microduct send long lengths through in one run, and the reels they leave at a cabinet or hut site depend on the cable count and the length on the order.

Rural builds add distance. The reels end up on county roads and co-op lots far from any plant, which makes freight the main cost of moving them and makes a buyer within a few hours' drive worth more than a higher offer from across the country.

Which reels go back and which stay

Fiber builders handle two kinds of reel that look alike in a yard and are treated very differently. Duct and conduit often ships on reels too. Dura-Line's reel credit applies only to its own steel reels from its facilities; its wooden-stave reels and reels from anywhere else do not qualify, and returned reels are inspected on arrival. So a crew holding Dura-Line steel reels sends them back for credit, and the wooden ones are the crew's to keep or sell.

Fiber cable reels are mostly wood and mostly non-returnable. Sonoco's EcoReel program takes truckloads of viable nailed wood and polyfiber reels, and lists telecommunications among the cable its reels carry, but a fiber contractor's yard with forty reels in seven sizes is not a truckload of anything. Those mixed lots are what we buy.

What fiber crews buy from us

Fiber jobs need empty reels for three things. First, respooling: a crew cuts a long reel into shorter lengths for separate spans or for a second crew, and each length needs a reel with a big enough drum. Second, recovery: when a route is changed or an old copper or coax plant is pulled down, the removed cable goes onto empties for scrap or reuse. Third, storage: slack and emergency restoration lengths kept at a central office or warehouse need a reel that will not crush them.

For fiber we only offer reels whose drum passes the bend rule for the cable you name. Give us the cable's outside diameter and the length, and we will match a used reel by drum first, then by footage and out-to-out width.

Selling a fiber contractor's empties

1. 01

   Separate steel and duct reels

   Return the maker's steel reels under its program first; Dura-Line's credit covers only its own steel reels.

2. 02

   Write up the wood

   Each size as flange x traverse x drum with a count; read the stencil or measure.

3. 03

   Check the flange bolts and staves

   Corning notes that wooden reel flange bolts loosen with temperature and humidity; loose bolts are easy, broken staves and split arbor holes are not.

4. 04

   Tell us where the reels are

   Contractor yard, county lot or roadside staging, and whether a forklift is there.

Small reels in the telecom trade

Drop cable, premises fiber and copper station wire come on small reels: Superior Essex's plastic 12 and 14 inch reels and plywood 16 to 30 inch reels. We don't trade plastic reels. The plywood ones, especially the 24x18x12 and 30x18x12, are useful to fiber splicers and test crews carrying respooled lengths, and we take them in mixed lots alongside larger reels or by the pallet.