Chad,

I am a bit rusty on the subject but it's an area I have some expertise in so perhaps I can help you if you'll give me more information.  By "insulation" what are you referring to?  All the materials that make up a fiber cable are insulating to a degree.  There are cables that are designed to be placed near very high voltage AC and DC electric transmission lines.  They have more resistance to the electric field's effect (corona) on the cable.  All dielectric self supporting cables (ADSS) like http://www.ofsoptics.com/resources/powerguideadssweb.pdf , for example.  OFS states that they comply with applicable Telcordia Technologies, EIA/TIA, IEEE, and RUS standards.

The IEEE Power Engineering Society has a committee that writes standards for such cables (I used to be a member).
Here's an announcement from that committee.  See http://standards.ieee.org/announcements/pr_12221590app.html

Corning has a white paper on the subject at this link and it references several standards and books on the subject:
http://ccswebapps.corning.com/web/library/aenotes.nsf/0/A2DE8DFB35A7A61585256C8D007E02F3/$FILE/AEN032.pdf

EIA/TIA has published many standards for testing fiber cable. 

Here's an informative paper on the subject
http://www.pserc.wisc.edu/documents/publications/reports/2002_reports/karady_adss_report.pdf

"Utilities have reported failures of ADSS (All Dielectric Self-Supporting) fiber
optic cables installed on high voltage lines. The high electric field on those lines
generates continuous corona discharge at the end of supporting armor rods. This
discharge leads to cable deterioration. In a polluted environment, dry-band arcing causes
cable deterioration when fog or dew occasionally wet the cable. This report presents a
novel experimental technique to assess cable deterioration due to dry-band arcing. A
long-term laboratory test replicated the dry-band arcing cause of fiber optic cable
deterioration. The failure mechanism was identified and the cable life expectancy was
estimated. A result of this project is the development of a novel test method to evaluate
damage of ADSS fiber optic cables when dry-band arcing occurs."

A friend of mine, Jim Hayes, is a very well known respected fiber expert (interesting fellow - Jim has a Ph.D. in Astronomy and races vintage Alfa Romeos).  He runs a listserv on fiberoptics so you might ask him for assistance.  See http://www.jimhayes.com/lennielw/

Bob Landman
H&L Instruments, LLC

-----Original Message-----
From: TechNet [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Gyorke, Chad (SA-1)
Sent: Wednesday, October 20, 2010 9:40 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: [TN] Fiber Optic Cables

Hello TechNet,

    Does anybody know what standard(s) can be used to evaluate fiber optic cables?  We are covered as far as performance and length but our concern is over insulation thickness, I do not believe normal WHMA/IPC-620 rules would apply.

Chad




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