Author Archives

Liz Goldsmith

Electric Utilities and The Future of Open Broadband

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Electric Co-Ops and Municipal Light Departments have been offering Internet Access over fiber for many years and more are beginning the process. The model has been to deploy fiber for “utility meter reading” and then, at near zero marginal costs, offer high speed Internet access. This may be clever, and very profitable, and in many rural areas it’s the only high-speed Internet Access game in town. However, in non-rural area this can have the effect of deepening the existing digital divide and creating a new one. This is not the future of broadband. It’s not fair to incumbent broadband providers or any other over-builder who can’t hide the huge fiber construction cost in an electric utility rate base.

Webinar: Scaling to 400G – The Need for Speed

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As transmission speeds increase in data center and enterprise networks, it becomes increasingly important to adopt a cabling-infrastructure strategy that considers multiple generations of network evolution. Deploying a cabling system that can support current and future needs requires thoughtful planning, and also requires an approach that is both robust and flexible. This webinar will describe in detail how to plan and implement a fiber-optic cabling infrastructure that supports port breakout for today’s applications.

The Road to Connectivity is on the Backbone Pathway

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Business owners and IT managers know high-speed internet is essential for productivity in the work place. A building with little or no connectivity does not work, literally. The typical means of connecting to a service uses optical networks for a single company or multi-tenant building. Cables or fibers run into optical connections located in the entrance facility (main telecom room). These rooms are also referred to as MPOP or the DMARC (DeMARCation) point. At that point, the service provider supplies a router as a handoff point somewhere outside the building. But this leaves a gap in service from the handoff point to the building and a backbone pathway is needed for connectivity.

New High-Density Fiber Connectors Challenges

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In response to the need for higher density in data centers, a couple of new fiber connectors have recently been introduced to the market. Because these connectors are new, test equipment with these interfaces has not yet been introduced, which presents some Tier 1 testing challenges and a shift from the traditional recommended 1-jumper reference method. Let’s take a closer look at these connector types and how to test them.

Multi-tenant data centers are key to managing data without breaking the bank

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A multi-tenant data center (MTDC), also known as a colocation data center, is a facility where organizations can rent space to host their data. MTDCs provide the space and networking equipment to connect an organization to service providers at a minimal cost. Businesses can rent to meet varying needs—from a server rack to a complete purpose-built module. The scalability of usage provides the business benefits of a data center without the high price.A future-ready MTDC will offer scalability, flexibility, modularity, and stringent SLAs.