Understanding complex cable connectivity is crucial to the overall installation and your project’s success. The top five connectivity issues that impact performance are: Use of the incorrect network interface type; selection of proper cable type; reversed polarity; mismatched connectors; and poor installation practices.
Multimode optical fiber is the most common media choice for both backbone and horizontal distribution within the local area network (LAN) including campuses, buildings, and data centers. This article take a closer look at the types of multimode fiber options based on bandwidth and distance needs for 1 Gb/s, 10 Gb/s, 40 Gb/s and 100 Gbp/s networks.
As customer demand for extreme high-capacity, low-latency data transport continues to grow, CenturyLink is expanding the company’s intercity network by adding 4.7 million miles of Corning fiber, making it the largest ultra-low-loss fiber network in North America. The first phase of this overbuild fiber network, completed in June, connects more than 50 major cities throughout the U.S.
With hyperscale data centers driving the need for extreme high density fiber cabling, the market has responded with new products that pack up to 3,456 fibers into a single cable. Such density affects the installation of these cables. This article overviews some of the high-density fiber-optic cables available today and their suppliers’ comments and recommendations regarding installation practices.
The TIA TR-42.1 engineering committee on premises telecommunications infrastructure has issued a call for interest to updates the document that provides guidance on cabling for wireless access points. TSB-162-B, Telecommunications Cabling Guidelines for Wireless Access Points, will describe the cabling between LAN equipment and wireless access points including pathways and spaces to support the cabling and wireless access points.
Smart buildings leverage IoT technologies to control, connect and optimize building management systems. Think: lighting, security systems, HVAC systems and more. When connected, these systems share data back and forth, providing key insights that lead to higher efficiency, greater safety and comfort and lower cost of operation.
Believe it or not, choosing between deploying single-mode and multimode fiber optic cable is much like debating whether to drive or fly for a family vacation. How many people are going? What’s the fastest route? What will travel conditions be like? What’s your budget? How comfortable will we be on the trip? Do we need to bring extra luggage? Answering questions like these will help you choose whether you fly with singlemode fiber or drive with multimode.
Contamination remains the number one cause of fiber link failures. Defects on a fiber end-face come in all types, shapes and sizes. They include scratches, cracks, and pits and contaminants like dirt, dust, oil and even salt. If you properly clean a fiber end-face with lint-free wipes and a specialized solvent designed specifically for fiber cleaning, it’s possible to remove contaminants from the fiber end-face. But what about permanent surface defects like scratches, cracks and pits that can’t be removed via cleaning?
Superior Essex has released its I/O Riser 2×2 Hybrid cable for indoor/outdoor applications and claims the I/O Riser 2×2 Hybrid cable is the first and only communications hybrid cable that is UL Wet Location listed; UL Direct Burial listed for the interlock armored version, and is UL listed for use in both Class 3 as well as Class 2 circuits.
5G will happen in the airy realm of radio waves. To get there, big telecoms have to harness underused parts of the spectrum. But there’s another crucial part underlying this system: lowly cable. Huge numbers of new transmitters will be needed to relay all that data to your phone, and many of those transmitters will still connect to the internet through fiber-optic cable—glass as thin as strands of hair carrying pulses of light. To make it all work, companies, including OFS Optics, a fiber-optics and cable company, are now being commissioned to produce millions of miles of new cable holding twice as many fiber pairs—two strands, one for the uplink and one for the downlink—as the old stuff.
