As bandwidth usage intensifies, costs of fiber optic cable continue to decrease and emerging technologies demand faster speeds and more reliable connectivity, fiber cable is becoming a practical solution for many cabling projects. Before you decide for sure that fiber is the right way to go for your project, there’s another decision to make: Do you need singlemode or multimode fiber?
While many communities across the country are already using fiber optic cables to connect traffic signals and sites, more and more municipal communities are using fiber-optic networks to create connections and advantages for their community and its residents, including helping communities rebound from weather, attract and stimulate new business, attract and retain residents, reduce dependency on communications companies, and prepare communities for the future.
As fiber-optic cabling continues to grow in popularity, it is being installed in more types of environments than ever before. Some of these environments have inherent restrictions on or challenges to routing, installation, termination, and verification practices. While some recommended practices apply across a broad range of applications and environments, other fiber deployments require unique or specialized practices. This webcast looks at fiber deployment in different environments, including an examination of multiple termination styles, proper test procedures, cleaning processes, and inspection techniques.
A quick tutorial on bend radius from the Fiber Optic Association: All FO cables have specs that must not be exceeded during install to prevent irreparable damage to the cable: pulling tension, min bend radius, crush loads. Installers must understand these specs & know how to pull cables without damaging them. Why is it important? Not following bend radius guidelines can lead to cable damage. If the cable is damaged in installation, the manufacturer’s warranty is voided. That means if you are pulling a cable over a pulley, that pulley should have a min radius of 260mm/10″ or a diameter of 520mm/20″ – don’t get radius and diameter mixed up!
The Fiber Broadband Association is proud to announce its weekly live video series. Fiber for Breakfast is a 30-minute live video discussion hosted by our President and CEO, Lisa R. Youngers, and featuring industry thought leaders on current topics that explore fiber as the critical infrastructure for 21st century communications as well as other connectivity and workplace issues presented during these challenging times. Fiber for Breakfast takes place every Wednesday at 10am ET.
When we caught up with four members of the TIA’s Fiber Optic Technology Consortium after their panel discussion at the BICSI Winter Conference, we asked them questions they didn’t have the opportunity to address on-stage. Among the topics: the installed base of singlemode, multimode’s future, keeping MPOs clean, and high-speed connectivity.
Simulating real-world fiber optic links and time delays in the lab environment is both a frequent and necessary task for engineers performing R&D and equipment certification testing processes. With the evolution to more advanced network architecture, increasing speeds of 400G and beyond, and latency always being a key element, replicating the field network as closely as possible in the lab is critical to ensure systems will perform as expected post-deployment.
Fiber optic technology is continuing its push into high-end military systems as engineers increasingly choose it to meet accelerating speed demands. This marks a change from its traditional role as a technology for long-distance communications. Board and system suppliers are responding to this demand with a variety of optical products for backplanes and short-distance applications.
Hengtong Rockley has released a 400G QSFP-DD DR4 optical module based on silicon photonics technology geared for cloud data center networks. The new 400G QSFP-DD module is the company’s first 400G silicon photonics optical module product and is intended for use in next generation cloud-scale data center networks for low-cost, low-power consumption optical connections between switches. The deployment of such 400G transceivers will enable data center networks to deliver a 4x increase in network speed compared to existing deployments using 100G.
OFC 2020 began yesterday, despite California declaring a state of emergency and cancellations among exhibit hall and conference participants. In response to the growing concerns over the spread out of the Coronavirus the OFC Steering Committee and Program and General Chairs are using infrastructure enabled by the OFC community to allow for virtual technical participation by the international community that has been impacted by the Coronavirus. Details on health and safety measures that have been implemented in response to the Coronavirus can be found here.
