TIDEL PARK
H
ow does one go about building what is
unarguably the largest single installation
in India with, literally, hundreds of fiber
connects as those in Tidel Park, Chennai
– an intimidat-ing network, and one of the most
colossal broadband infrastructures in India?
Traditionally, most architects have been using only
single-mode fiber for such applications. Consider
VSNL. The telecom giant has built its backbone on
the Tidel Park premises and used single-mode fiber,
without con-forming to ‘structured cabling practices’.
The Imposing Architecture of Tidel Park
It has laid the fiber
straight from the
ground floor to the
office unit.
The Tidel Park
authorities, however,
insisted that KRONE,
one of the world’s
leading suppliers of
telecommunications
and data communica-
tions system
solutions, implement
proper structured
cabling practices. This
involved terminating
the fiber at every floor

It’s a dream Park – not built
in a day! This 1.28-million
sq.ft built-up area has a
modular floor layout and a
wide-span column design to
match individual
requirements. Small,
medium and large offices of
4,585-89,000 sq.ft in super
built-up areas occupy every
floor.
A dedicated 110-kv
substation provides reliable
power supply and 10.5 MVA
DG sets are stacked up for
100 percent backup. The Park
boasts the world’s third-
largest state-of-the art, TES
technology-based central air-
conditioning system and a
noise-proof, energy-efficient
offices with double-glazed
glass curtain walls.
Automated building
management systems control
and manage air-conditioners,
lifts, access control systems
and all installed plant and
machinery. Escalators
connect a common area, with

FIFTH FLOOR
FOURTH FLOOR
THIRD FLOOR
SECOND FLOOR
SM 12 PORT
MM 12 PORT
SM MM
24 PORT
WALL MOUNT
MULTIMEDIA
OUTLET
SM. INDORE OFFICE CABLE
24 CORE FIBRE OPTIC
COMPOSITE CABLE
TIDEL PARK
50 P
50 P
50 P
50 P
50 P
50 P
50 P
50 P
50 P
50 P
50 P
12TH FLOOR
11TH FLOOR
10TH FLOOR
NINTH FLOOR

transportation); BSES Co. Ltd, India (electrical
generators).
The entire complex is maintained by a reputed
international agency.
BASIC ARCHITECTURE
The aerial view of Tidel Park shows four 12-storey
towers – A, B, C and D. Except tower B, which has
only two floors currently in use, all the others have
office units, sometimes upto three or four in number,
on all the 12 floors.
KRONE provided Copper based connectivity, using
a PCM cable. The second part of this is an industry-
standard, single-mode fiber for the communication
backbone. Additionally, multimode fiber connectivity
has also been offered.
THE CHALLENGES
The reason for this form of advanced connectivity?
Tidel Park wanted a fiber optic communication
backbone that could support a wide range of
applications – both data applications using multi-
mode and data & voice appli-cations using a single-
mode. For a backbone riser, this might be an example
of an elaborate architecture.
The Tidel Park authorities have their own reasons
for providing both the technologies in the riser, one
of them being a 100-year-term plan.
In the clinical architecture, the entire planning cen-
tered on how to manage the connectorization process
smoothly to ensure that the quality of
connectorization is good.

of silica glass, or plastic. They comprise a light-
guiding core with a refractive index n
k
– which is
covered by a glass cladding with a lower refractive
index n
m
. There are three different types of optical
fiber.
Step Index Multi-Mode Fiber
The core diameters of multimode (MM) optical fiber
with a step profile
range from 100 to
200
mm
mm
mm. The
refractive index
profile features a
constant refractive
index n
k
at the core
and a sharp decline
at the interface with
the cladding, with
the refractive index
n
k
. Several hundred light waves (modes) with

designs optical cables and connectivity products spe-
cializing in the “last mile” between network operators
and customers.
KRONE has laid a 24-core composite fiber-optic
cable, comprising 12-core single-mode (9/125
microns) fibers and 12-core multi-mode (62.5/125
microns) from the Tidel Park Data Center to each
(occupant) floor on the backbone risers. The
composite fiber riser cable is a loose tube design and
an LSZH-type.
The riser ends at the Tidel Park Data Center on a
24 port 19” rack-mountable fiber distribution box
that can accommodate both single-mode and
multi-mode cou-plers. The riser at the other end is
terminated at each floor on a wall-mount fiber
distribution box.
From the wall-mount fiber distribution box, each
occupant is connected by a two-core zip-cord-type
duplex LSZH multi-mode and single-mode horizontal
fiber cable, which, in the horizontal, has been
terminated on a faceplate at the customer module
that can accommodate modular SC adapters for
single-mode, as well as multi-mode.
SC couplers are used in the faceplates for the fiber
cable termination.
The best thing about
the entire solution is
that Krone has
installed low-smoke
zero-halogen (LSZH)

n
r
Index profile
Step Index Multi-Mode Fiber
Core
Cladding
f200mm
f230mm
Cladding n
m
n
k
= const.
Fibre cross section
n
Index profile