EXPLAINER SERIES: How modular plastic chambers can protect your critical underground assets, hassle-free.

They’re lightweight and super quick to install 

Here in Europe, we’ve been using ready-to-assemble furniture for almost 70 years. Now we can take the same approach to our telecom chambers. Preformed plastic chambers are lightweight and supplied in flat pieces or rings for easy on-site configuration in as little as 20 minutes. Each ring is stacked to achieve the required height before the chamber is completed with a frame and cover.  

Prefabricated duct entry points can then be removed quickly with a hammer (and without a drill) to facilitate conduit installation. Best of all, with no heavy lifting equipment required and no concrete or adhesives needing to dry, roads and pavements can be reopened more quickly after installation, freeing you to get on with connecting subscribers.  

They don’t force you to compromise on strength and longevity 

While, admittedly, your ready-to-assemble coffee table is unlikely to have the durability of a solid oak alternative, the same trade-off doesn’t apply when using preformed plastic modular chambers. That’s because they’re manufactured to meet the load requirements in EN124, a European standard which specifies design, testing, and performance requirements for chamber covers and frames in areas subject to pedestrian or vehicle loads.  

With proper installation, a preformed plastic modular chamber can be installed in the same scenarios as a concrete or brick-built equivalent with the same loading class, per EN124. In fact, concrete can suffer from cracking due to ground movement, temperature cycling, and heavy traffic loads – particularly if not installed correctly. By contrast, plastics like polypropylene are highly durable and resistant to impact, corrosion, chemicals, and UV light, making them an ideal choice for the long-term.

They’re adaptable by design 

On any fibre build, change is practically inevitable. New commercial opportunities, underground obstacles, and permits can all necessitate changes to your route and specification. In such situations, common precast concrete chambers are notoriously difficult to modify.  Fixed sizes give little to no scalability, and cutting or drilling concrete for new conduits is slow and requires specialist tools.  

By contrast, modular plastic pieces that form stackable rings allow easy depth and dimensional adjustments, allowing for future expansion or replacement without excavating the whole chamber. Adding new conduits is simply a matter of removing a prefabricated duct entry at the required location. 

They help streamline your operations 

Unlike traditional concrete chambers, which are supplied in a single, solid, often heavy piece, modular chambers allow for highly efficient use of space in warehouses and on trucks. This means more individual units can be transported at one time, to lower logistical costs – as well as emissions – due to the relative weight. And because chambers can be made to various sizes and depths using a limited number of modular components, they allow operators and wholesalers alike to streamline their inventory management, rather than keeping several precast concrete chambers of different sizes readily available.  

They support your sustainability goals 

For many European operators, sustainability has quickly been elevated from a nice-to-have to a strategic priority. Regulation, investors, and the public have all led organisations to embed sustainability at every level of their business, including network components. So, another reason for the rise in popularity of preformed plastic modular access chambers is that not only are they light weight, but many are made from recycled materials like polypropylene, which are also recyclable at the end of their operational lifetime. And provided a modular chamber is in good condition, it can even be deconstructed and used elsewhere, e.g., in an emergency restoration situation. By contrast, concrete chambers are typically not reusable, and the process by which concrete is made has a relatively high carbon footprint compared with lightweight plastic systems.