What mistakes can be made during install a fiber optic?

It is time to look at the capillaries of your tree architecture where most of the important components are attached in the forms of leaves. As the trunk of the tree has a bigger diameter and a sustainable function for the whole tree, in the same way the backbone fiber has the largest bandwidth of the network ensured by the layout of the singlemode fiber cables connecting two branch locations.

 

Distance coverage

The manufacturing price per kilometer of optical fibre cables has dropped over the last years and the properties have improved but the installation work remains at a high cost per kilometer driven by the construction autorisations needed and effective cost of labour for installation whether the cable is buried directly, put in conduit, strung aerially or whatever. In this case the use of singlemode fibres forming contained in a cable from a well-known manufacturer, it will come with clear specifications regarding the number of fibers, the type of fibres, the type of protection cover for the whole cable such as loose tube cables: These cables are composed of several fibers together inside a small plastic tube, which are in turn wound around a central strength member and jacketed, providing a small, high fiber count cable. This type of cable is ideal for outside plant trunking applications, as it can be made with the loose tubes filled with gel to prevent harm to the fibers from water. It can be used in conduits, strung overhead or buried directly into the ground. Since the fibers have only a thin buffer coating, they must be carefully handled and protected to prevent damage.

 

What mistake can be made in choosing to have own fibre cable buried to the next branch? Well, it may be cheaper to rent a huge bandwidth than to construct it and own it. Local carriers may have good offers for variable bandwidth running over their own infrastructure laid on different topological paths and ensuring a high Service Level Agreement (SLA) for their bandwidth offer.

 

Data Center Cabling

Data Center environment is the first candidate for upgrading an existing build out or for constructing from ground zero the whole infrastructure. In both cases distribution switches, SAN disks, high computing servers, interconnected routers may benefit from Gigabit interfaces and may be upgraded based on multimode distribution fibre connections.   Distribution cables: They contain several double-buffered fibers bundled under the same jacket with Kevlar or fiberglass rod reinforcement. These cables are small in size, and used for short, dry conduit runs, riser and plenum applications. The fibers are double buffered and can be directly terminated, but because their fibers are not individually reinforced, these cables need to be broken out with a "breakout box" or terminated inside a patch panel or junction box.

 

What are the common mistakes in case of the datacenter fiber cabling? Well, the planner should take care about not mixing singlemode with multimode patch fibers because the link won’t work. A very important aspect may be respected in terms of terminal connectors of the fibers and connectors of the transponders or transceivers.  Angle Polished Connectors (APC) or Ultra Polished Connectors (UPC), and they are not interchangeable. An APC ferrule end-face is polished at an 8° angle, while the UPC is polished at a 0° angle. If the angles are different, some of the light will fail to propagate, becoming connector or splice loss.

 

Another aspect of data center patching is the use of a single fiber where transmission (Tx) is made on lamda 1 and reception (Rx) is made on the lamda 2. This is the case of Single Strand Fiber - SSF and transceivers should match the same lamdas pairs at the end of the fiber. For example:  

 

BO15C3149620D - The BlueOptics BO15C3149620D Bidi SFP transceivers have a receiving function (receiver) and a transmission function (transmitter) for the transfer of optical signals with a single laser (BOSA) for the transmission of optical signals via single-mode fiber, regarding the respective gigabit protocol, such as the GB Ethernet 802.3z standard.

BlueOptics BO15C3149620D Bidi SFP modules are suitable for the use in switches, routers, storage systems and other hardware in the third optical window at 1490nm and 1310nm.

 

Mechanical Stress

Bending Radius

Fiber is stronger than steel when you pull it straight, but it breaks easily when bent too tightly. If you put a kink in the cable, you will harm the fibers, maybe immediately, maybe not for a few years, but you will harm them and the cable must be removed and thrown away.

 

Twisting the cable

Putting a twist in the cable can stress the fibers too.

Copper based Ethernet equipment and cabling can continue to function reliably in other areas until it is deemed feasible in the upgrade timeline to reassess that department.