How about testing mpo/mtp cable

To understand the challenges of MPO cable validation, it’s necessary to understand MPO cables and how they’re tested in the field. An MPO connection is about the size of a fingernail and contains 12 optical fibers, each less than the diameter of a human hair – and each one needs to be tested separately. That traditionally means the use of a fan-out cord to isolate each fiber, followed by tedious manual testing, tracing, and error-prone calculations.

Testing and determining fiber polarity is another challenge. The simple purpose of any polarity scheme is to provide a continuous connection from the link’s transmitter to the link’s receiver. For array connectors, TIA-568-C.0 defines three methods to accomplish this: Methods A, B, and C. Deployment mistakes are common because these methods require a combination of patch cords with different polarity types

So what would a proper MPO test look like? The answer is simple: Test all 12 fibers – the whole cable – simultaneously and comprehensively (including loss, polarity, etc.). That sort of test capability changes the fiber landscape, enabling installers and technicians to efficiently validate and troubleshoot fiber – flying through the process by tackling an entire 12-fiber cable trunk with the push of a button.

The tools to perform this type of test are just emerging on the market, and promise to reduce the time and labor costs up to 95% over individual fiber tests (according to internal research based on the average list of standard competitive products). Characteristics to look for in such a tool include:

An onboard MPO connector to eliminate the complexity and manual calculations associated with a fan-out cord.
A single “Scan All” test function that delivers visual verification via an intuitive user interface for all 12 MPO fibers in a connector.
Built-in polarity verification for end-to-end connectivity of MPO trunk cables.
“Select Individual Fiber” function that enables the user to troubleshoot a single fiber with more precision.
Demand for fast and reliable delivery of critical applications is driving data center technology to evolve at an ever-increasing pace. And that insatiable need for bandwidth ensures that the integrity of the data center has become inextricably linked to the strength of the fiber cabling infrastructure. The growing use of MPO fiber trunks – and the migration from 10-Gbps to 40/100-Gbps connections – means that it’s time to stop the cumbersome verification of individual fibers. After all, it’s a single MPO connection. You should be able to test it as one.

You can buy fiber optic jumpers with mpo/mpo connectors  from FiberStore now!

More bandwidth means more testing

The use of MPO cables for trunking 10-Gbps connections in the data center has steadily risen over the past 10 years. That trunking requires use of a cassette at the end of the MPO cable designed to accommodate legacy equipment connections. Now that 40-Gbps and 100-Gbps connections are coming on the market, a migration path has emerged: Remove the 10-Gbps cassette from the MPO cable and replace it with a bulkhead accommodating a 40-Gbps connection. Then it might be possible to remove that bulkhead and do a direct MPO connection for 100 Gbps at a later date.

The problem is that while this migration strategy is an efficient way to leverage the existing cabling, in comparison to 10-Gbps connections, the 40-Gbps and 100-Gbps standards call for different optical technology (parallel optics) and tighter loss parameters.

In short, each time you migrate you need to verify the links to ensure the performance delivery the organization requires.
To understand the challenges of MPO cable validation, it’s necessary to understand MPO cables and how they’re tested in the field. An MPO connection is about the size of a fingernail and contains 12 optical fibers, each less than the diameter of a human hair – and each one needs to be tested separately. That traditionally means the use of a fan-out cord to isolate each fiber, followed by tedious manual testing, tracing, and error-prone calculations.

The actual fiber test is quick enough: typically under 10 seconds per fiber once you’re in process. But you better be cruising: While one of our enterprise customers has data centers with as little as 24 MPO fiber trunks (x12 fibers each), that same customer also has a 30,000-MPO data center installation. That’s 30,000 connections with 12 fibers each, or roughly 3,120 hours in labor (and $343,200 in cost) if you had to test them all individually.

And at some point, you better have tested them. There were two primary drivers behind development of MPO fiber trunks. The first was the ever-increasing need for cabling density in the data center. Cabling blocks airflow, so the denser the cable, the better the thermal management. And, as data center bandwidth steadily climbs to 10, 40, and 100Gbps, a dense multi-fiber cable becomes the only option.

But the second, perhaps more important factor, is the difficult and highly technical nature of field termination for fiber. We’re talking curing ovens, adhesives, microscopic fibers, etc. Given that expensive and time-consuming “craft” process, modular factory-terminated MPO cables promise simplicity, lower cost, and true plug-and-play fiber connectivity.

The challenge is that pre-terminated fiber is only guaranteed “good” as it exists in the manufacturer’s factory. It must then be transported, stored, and later bent and pulled during installation in the data center. All kinds of performance uncertainties are introduced before fiber cables are deployed. Proper testing of pre-terminated cables after installation is the only way to guarantee performance in a live application. In short, investing in factory-terminated fiber trunks to save time and decrease labor costs doesn’t really offer an advantage if the testing becomes an expensive bottleneck.

Testing and determining fiber polarity is another challenge. The simple purpose of any polarity scheme is to provide a continuous connection from the link’s transmitter to the link’s receiver. For array connectors, TIA-568-C.0 defines three methods to accomplish this: Methods A, B, and C. Deployment mistakes are common because these methods require a combination of patch cords with different polarity types.

You can buy fiber optic jumpers with any connectors from FiberStore.

Fiber optical system operating wavelengths

A wide range of the optical system operating wavelengths can provide a very high capacity for the optical transmission system. The optical fiber type, source characteristics, system attenuation rang and dispersion of the optical path decide the operating wavelength range.

Singlemode fiber system spectral bands in ITU-T Recommendations:

1) “Original” O-band, 1260nm to 1360nm
Cable cut-off wavelength decide the lower limited wavelength is 1260nm. The upper linit 1 360 nm was chosen as to the rising edge of the “water” attenuation band peaked at 1 383 nm

2) “Extended” E-band, 1 360 nm to 1 460 nm.
Recommendation ITU-T G.652 also includes fibres with a low water attenuation peak, which
allows the utilization of the band above 1 360. The effects of a small water peak are negligible
at wavelengths beyond about 1 460 nm;

3) “Conventional” C-band, 1 530 nm to 1 565 nm.
Initially, erbium-doped fibre amplifiers (EDFAs) had useful gain bands beginning at about
1 530 nm and ending at about 1 565 nm. This gain band had become known as the “C-band”;

4) “Short wavelength” S-band, 1 460 nm to 1 530 nm.
The lower limit of this band is taken to be the upper limit of the E-band. The upper limit is
taken to be the lower limit of the C-band. EDFAs have become available with relatively flatter
and wider gains and application of EDFAs to this band is possible at least in a part of the band.
Some wavelengths of this band may also be utilized for pumping of optical fibre amplifiers,
both of the active-ion type and the Raman type;

5) “Long wavelength” L-band, 1 565 nm to 1 625 nm.
For the longest wavelengths above the C-band, fibre cable performance over a range of
temperatures is adequate up to 1 625 nm for current fibre types;

You can buy fiber optic jumpers and fiber pigtails from FiberStore now!

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