Slack left at planned points along a route, typically 50 to 100 feet at splice points and some at every termination, stored on brackets, in handholes or in panel enclosures. It lets a crew pull a closure up into a splice trailer, repair a damaged section or relocate equipment without a new pull. Storage must respect the cable's bend radius.
Leave a hundred-foot service loop in the vault, we'll need it to get the closure into the trailer.
A route without slack turns a simple backhoe repair into two splices and a new section of cable.
Also heard as
- slack loop
- maintenance loop
Related terms
Snowshoe
An oval aerial bracket, shaped like a snowshoe, used to store slack loops of fiber cable on the strand.
Splice closure
A sealed, re-enterable housing that protects fiber splices in outside plant, on poles, in vaults or buried.
Figure-eight
To lay pulled cable on the ground in a figure 8 pattern so it can be fed onward without twisting or kinking.
Bend radius
The tightest curve a fiber or cable can take without extra loss or damage, stated separately for pulling and at rest.