Fiber Optic Cabling Specialists, Inc. can independently verify your recently installed or existing fiber optic cabling system to insure compliance with bid specifications and current Tier 1 or Tier 2 industry standards. These tests insure that the fiber installed will support the network speeds.
The Importance of Fiber Optic Certification:
Fiber backbone speeds have increased rapidly over the past few years from 1GB to 10GB, and now 100GB. Your legacy 62.5/125um and legacy 50/125um cables will not support the backbone speeds required today. Depending on the fiber’s bandwidth characteristics and the length of the cables installed, they may support 10GB at very short distances but not 100GB. Singlemode fiber is required for 100GB LAN backbones exclusively.
The legacy OM2 50/125um fibers installed are very different from the new OM3 and OM4 laser-optimized 50/125um fibers sold today. The bandwidth gains in the OM3 and OM4 fibers are tremendous and designed specifically to support 10GB backbone speeds. At the introduction to market of these new laser optimized 50um multimode fibers, the production and marketing was incorrect, leading to countless installations of legacy 50um fiber installation error. Thus, the required 10GB backbone speeds were not supported.
Tier 1 Fiber Optic Certification
Each fiber will be tested per the Telecommunication Industry Association’s (TIA) current certification specification ANSI/TIA-568-D.3 for end to end attenuation, length, and proper polarity.
End-to-end attenuation (loss) and length are very important determining factors in an fiber optic cabling system’s ability to support current and future network backbone speeds. Installations are tested with the new Fluke Versiv CertiFiber Pro.
Proper polarity/connector orientation is confirmed on a duplex connector system. This is imperative to a duplex SC or the LC connector cabling system. Proper polarity insures that industry standard compliant-crossed A/B patchcords can be deployed and a plug and play link status obtained.
The obtained results are compared to a variety of current network speeds and the fiber’s suitability of supporting that speed confirmed.
Tier 2 Fiber Optic Certification
With 40GB and 100GB speeds emerging in the data center and looming in the very near future for corporate backbone speeds, a close examination of your fiber backbone is essential. Tier 2 testing uncovers unseen events along the fiber pathway that simple Tier 1 testing cannot reveal.
An Optical Time Domain Reflectometer’s (OTDR) signature trace recording of each fiber reveals nuances such as insertion loss at each connector pair junction, splice locations and associated loss, and any unforeseen abnormalities due to poor installation practices. Micro-bending of singlemode fibers at the 1550nm wavelength test can often be observed if the fiber optic cabling system is not properly installed. This is essential in Fiber to the Desk (FTTD) applications within workboxes at the workstation.
Insuring your fiber optic cabling system is up to the network speeds required guarantees the performance of your network,network, which prevents future downtime and failures.
Preventing downtime and failures in the future.
Contact us for pricing on project specific certification services.
