Author Archives

Liz Goldsmith

Austin, TX teams with NTT to speed smart city deployment

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The City of Austin, Texas and NTT will partner on an NTT Accelerate Smart pilot project that will use new smart city technologies to analyze vehicular traffic patterns, ease congestion and support community planning in Austin. NTT’s Accelerate Smart data platform, as well as modular data center infrastructure for edge deployments, will monitor traffic-related issues in downtown Austin using Internet of Things (IoT) devices deployed at the intersections of Cesar Chavez Street and Trinity Street and Neches Street and 8th Street.

Senko marks major advancements in SN connector, transceiver adoption

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The SN connector is a new, duplex optical fiber connector using LC style 1.25mm O.D. Zirconia ferrules, designed for next generation hyperscale data center interconnect (DCI). This connector was designed to provide individual and independent duplex fiber breakout at a quad style transceiver (QSFP, QSFP-DD and OSFP) that Senko contends is not only more efficient, reliable and scalable than the MPO connector but also at a lower in cost to implement. The SFP-DD has also adopted the SN as their independent duo style interface, mainly for the wireless fronthaul applications.

Rise of the splice machines

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With the move to higher and higher bandwidth, there is an industry emphasis on the insertion loss and reflectance performance of optical fiber terminations. While there are still optical fiber termination methods that rely on field polish of the optical fiber at the point of installation, the dominant technology today is the polish of optical fiber connectors in the controlled manufacturing environment. Even connectors that are field installable often have their fiber endface prepared in the controlled and repeatable environment of the factory

Recent transceiver standards solve data centre upgrade issues

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The emergence of the QSFP form factor has brought economies of scale to 100G upgrades, putting 100G within the cost reach of both small and hyper-scale data center operators. With a small profile and reduced power consumption, the QSFP form factor is the choice of switch manufacturers for 100G platforms. Despite the economies of scale at the switch level, the urgency to upgrade can inevitably lead to unforeseen compatibility and budget issues.

Tightly bundled or combed UTP Cables increase risk of Alien Crosstalk

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Whenever Category 6A UTP cables capable of supporting 10 Gig applications are combed or tightly bundled, you risk increased alien crosstalk (AXT) that can wreak havoc on high speed transmission. Why? Alien crosstalk is caused by interference on a cable pair from a pair in an adjacent cable, and it became an issue with Category 6A cabling characterized up to 500 MHz simply due to the higher level of frequency and noise. So it’s easy to understand that anytime cables are evenly combed or tightly bundled together so that they lay adjacent to one another, alien crosstalk will increase—precisely why worst-case alien crosstalk testing involves six around one.