GSM remote sensing for copper cable transmission line monitoring system using FPGA

Copper cable is used as a medium of communication whether for a fixed telephone line or internet service. Currently, the price of copper increases due to a high demand of global trading market. As a consequence, telephone cable stealing activities in Malaysia are also increased due to the copper used inside the telephone cable. Therefore, this project presents the works in designing and developing an innovative apparatus that will be able to help the local telecommunication company to monitor and detect not only the area or location of loss signal occurred but also the distance of the telephone cable being cut. This system applies the FPGA-based monitoring system using GSM (Global System for Mobile) network. 555 timer is used as a capacitance detector to detect the frequency value of the copper cable. The Altera DE2-70 board in the other hand is used to calculate the cable distance, which influenced by the cable frequency. After detecting an occurrence of a cable has been cut, this prototype will automatically activate an alarm signal and send an instant message (SMS) to alert the person in charge indicating the area and distance of the cable that has been cut.