Quote Originally Posted by Big Sexy View Post
Even though this isn’t part of a 3 million dollar setup, I am betting that tool cost at least 10k$.
Back in those days the tool was a large console tool which weighed at least half a ton, and cost over $1M, the rest of the cost was for the positive pressure A/C to keep dust out of the truck, the consumables, etc. I'm talking the early 1990's, and Telstra pretty much had the monopoly on fibre networks, and was charged a lot for any equipment. nowadays (as evidenced in the video) you can do splicing in the dirt, and the machine is only a few grand. Consumables have come down a lot in price driven by competition out of asia... but if you insist on buying Corning glass components, the prices haven't moved too much, inflation pretty much cancelling out Burke's law.
when I ran the fibre out to my shed, it was cheaper to buy preterminated SMOF with home made wall plate joiners, etc than to buy unterminated cable, pigtails, etc and have someone come and do the joints.