Project Planning and Management
This section covers Project Planning and Management for the FOA CFOS/DAS exam. The exam tests how you turn an approved DAS fiber design into an installed, tested, and accepted system: scope, schedule, procurement, dependencies, commissioning, and closeout. DAS projects fail less often from fiber loss than from late site access, missing power or cooling, or fiber counts changed after procurement.
Core planning rules
- Build a work breakdown structure by area and phase: survey, design approval, permitting, pathway, cabling, termination, testing, commissioning, acceptance, and closeout. Assign owners and acceptance criteria to each.
- Map dependencies across disciplines. Headend power and HVAC must precede equipment commissioning; fiber pathway and RRU mounting must precede termination; RF design approval must precede fiber-count freeze. Track carrier approvals, landlord access, permits, and long-lead optics or RRUs.
- Use critical path and float. Protect zero-float commissioning and test windows; move resources to critical tasks. Control changes formally: a sector or MIMO change alters fiber pairs, connectors, test scope, and schedule.
- Plan test and acceptance early: inspection, OLTS Tier 1, OTDR Tier 2 where specified, labeling, as-builts, and CPRI link validation. Define pass/fail limits and who witnesses them.
Worked example
A 12-week DAS fiber build has these durations: survey and design 2 weeks; permit and access 4 weeks starting after survey; fiber and optics procurement 6 weeks starting after design; pathway 3 weeks after permit; installation and termination 2 weeks after pathway and material; test 1 week; commissioning 2 weeks. The critical path is survey 2 + permit 4 + pathway 3 + installation 2 + test 1 + commissioning 2 = 14 weeks, not 12. Procurement starts at week 2 and finishes week 8, before installation needs it at week 9, so it has 1 week float. To recover, overlap pathway with permit release by area or pre-order long-lead optics at design freeze; compressing commissioning is risky because it is zero-float and acceptance-critical.
Traps
Planning fiber independently of RF and headend work; assuming permits and building access are instant; ordering fiber before sector count is frozen; ignoring optics lead times; leaving no test ports or access; treating commissioning as slack; undocumented change orders; missing as-builts and acceptance signatures; confusing RF PIM or coverage tests with optical loss tests.