In a guest-commentary article that will be published in Cabling Installation & Maintenance's June issue, magazine reader Gautier Humbert takes the magazine's editor to task for authoring an article that Humbert believes tells only one side of a technical story. Humbert is a business development manager for Legrand in East and Central Europe. The article with which Humbert takes issue is The technical realities of twisted-pair beyond 10G, published in the magazine's April 2011 issue. That article, authored by magazine editor Patrick McLaughlin (OK, I'll admit it, that's me), was derived in large part from a Web-delivered seminar that took place in January. That seminar was entitled Twisted-Pair Cabling and Higher-Than-10G Transmission, and can be seen and heard here. During the seminar, presenters told of the then-current state of affairs within standards bodies to establish bona fide cabling and/or networking standards through which twisted-pair cabling systems would support Ethernet transmission at 40 Gbits/sec. The seminar also included discussion of the reasons such standards efforts are being proposed -- or, said differently, the seminar included advocacy for such standards proposals.
In his commentary article, Humbert makes the argument that foiled/unshielded twisted-pair (F/UTP) cabling, not shielded/foiled twisted-pair (S/FTP) cabling, is likely to be the medium of the future. The article and corresponding seminar included significant information about the characteristics of S/FTP cabling. In addition to making an argument based on a combination of technical and market factors, Humbert chastises McLaughlin (me) for penning an article that told just a single side of the story. He says, "The fact that some manufacturers use tools like one-viewpoint white papers to push their solutions is not new. If any company wants to do this, I think they have the right to. But for this magazine to support it, I believe, is a mistake."
Cabling Installation & Maintenance's June issue will be mailed to subscribers in the middle of the month and will be available online at approximately the same time.
Rather than take a defensive posture and develop creative ways to challenge Gautier Humbert's stance, I'll recall one of the more famous lines from U.S. Senator Scott Brown's campaign, in which he won the Senate seat that had been vacated with the passing of the late Senator Edward Kennedy. During one of Brown's debates with Massachusetts's Attorney General Martha Coakley, Brown stated (and I'm paraphrasing here but you can watch it on YouTube), "It's not Kennedy's seat. It's the people's seat." In a similar vein, Cabling Installation & Maintenance is not my magazine. I'm privileged to serve as its editor and I hope that in doing so, I'm actually serving you. My own inherently biased opinion about the value of that article in our April issue is not what matters. Your opinion is what matters.
Friday, May 27, 2011
Friday, May 20, 2011
Young cabling professionals compete at WorldSkills
The profession we know and love, cabling, is part of the annual WorldSkills Competition. Described by WikiPedia as a competition for youth from 17 to 22 years of age to demonstrate their excellence in skilled professions, WorldSkills is held every two years in a member country. The 2009 competition took place in Calgary, Canada and this year's event will be held in London in October.
WorldSkillsTV has posted a few cabling-specific videos from Calgary on YouTube. In the 90-second video embedded here, competitor Rounnachai Ampaipoka of Thailand reflects on his first day of participation in the event.
In a separate video from 2009, which you can see here, Fluke Networks' David Coffin discusses his company's participation as a sponsor of the 2009 competition.
You can visit the WorldSkills website here.
WorldSkillsTV has posted a few cabling-specific videos from Calgary on YouTube. In the 90-second video embedded here, competitor Rounnachai Ampaipoka of Thailand reflects on his first day of participation in the event.
In a separate video from 2009, which you can see here, Fluke Networks' David Coffin discusses his company's participation as a sponsor of the 2009 competition.
You can visit the WorldSkills website here.
Wednesday, May 4, 2011
Oh, flux. There's more to the story.
Recently in some online postings as well as an article that appeared in the April issue of Cabling Installation & Maintenance magazine, we have brought you information about the recently adopted TIA-526-14-B standard that specifies encircled flux as the launch condition for installed multimode fiber cable. The TIA TR-42 Committee approved TIA-526-14-B in October 2010.
After seeing the article in our April issue, Jim Hayes, founder of The Fiber Optic Association and VDV Works, wrote to me. Within his letter, Hayes noted that the International Organization for Standardization (ISO), which first standardized the encircled-flux launch condition, did so based on research conducted by a single individual. Additionally, the research "only looked at multimode loss up to 2 dB." Hayes added that based on tests he (Hayes) conducted with another individual, at loss values higher than 2 dB, the technology used to achieve the EF launch condition "failed to even make two OTDRs agree, and the results were vastly different depending on the configurations of the cable plant."
Hayes also said that much of the EF analysis conducted when the TIA was considering adopting the EF specifications, was done using simulations of cable plants. "Real world data was scarce," he said. In the meantime, there was poor correlation among labs when international round-robin testing was initially conducted. Another round-robin test is now underway.
In his letter, Hayes noted CI&M's recent coverage of bend-insensitive fiber (pro and con), commending the magazine for "noting that there was still controversy in the marketplace." He added, "I think you should have treated encircled flux with the same skepticism."
The Fiber Optic Association has published and maintains a Reference Guide to Fiber Optics. The guide's section on Modal Effects on Multimode Fiber Loss Measurements includes information on encircled flux and its adoption by the TIA. That section describes EF as "a more precise method of defining mode fill," and "a more sensitive way of defining power." That section of the guide later explains that EF has been incorporated into several multimode testing standards, adding, "It is intended to create a more reproducible modal condition for testing that is similar to the CPR/mandrel wrap method ... Since EF is new (as of 2/2011), testing sources for EF [have] not been demonstrated to be well correlated between labs or manufacturers, so using it is not yet widely accepted. It will probably not be a widely used method before 2012."
You can read that section of the Reference Guide to Fiber Optics here.
This take on encircled flux differs from information we have published in the past, including this article from a year ago. Despite the questions that Hayes raises about the validity of EF across a range of loss values, it remains the specified launch condition in TIA-526-14-B as well as IEC 61280-4-1 edition 2, from which the TIA adopted it. We intend to follow the practical application of encircled flux, and describe its real-world use for testing installed multimode fiber plants.
After seeing the article in our April issue, Jim Hayes, founder of The Fiber Optic Association and VDV Works, wrote to me. Within his letter, Hayes noted that the International Organization for Standardization (ISO), which first standardized the encircled-flux launch condition, did so based on research conducted by a single individual. Additionally, the research "only looked at multimode loss up to 2 dB." Hayes added that based on tests he (Hayes) conducted with another individual, at loss values higher than 2 dB, the technology used to achieve the EF launch condition "failed to even make two OTDRs agree, and the results were vastly different depending on the configurations of the cable plant."
Hayes also said that much of the EF analysis conducted when the TIA was considering adopting the EF specifications, was done using simulations of cable plants. "Real world data was scarce," he said. In the meantime, there was poor correlation among labs when international round-robin testing was initially conducted. Another round-robin test is now underway.
In his letter, Hayes noted CI&M's recent coverage of bend-insensitive fiber (pro and con), commending the magazine for "noting that there was still controversy in the marketplace." He added, "I think you should have treated encircled flux with the same skepticism."
The Fiber Optic Association has published and maintains a Reference Guide to Fiber Optics. The guide's section on Modal Effects on Multimode Fiber Loss Measurements includes information on encircled flux and its adoption by the TIA. That section describes EF as "a more precise method of defining mode fill," and "a more sensitive way of defining power." That section of the guide later explains that EF has been incorporated into several multimode testing standards, adding, "It is intended to create a more reproducible modal condition for testing that is similar to the CPR/mandrel wrap method ... Since EF is new (as of 2/2011), testing sources for EF [have] not been demonstrated to be well correlated between labs or manufacturers, so using it is not yet widely accepted. It will probably not be a widely used method before 2012."
You can read that section of the Reference Guide to Fiber Optics here.
This take on encircled flux differs from information we have published in the past, including this article from a year ago. Despite the questions that Hayes raises about the validity of EF across a range of loss values, it remains the specified launch condition in TIA-526-14-B as well as IEC 61280-4-1 edition 2, from which the TIA adopted it. We intend to follow the practical application of encircled flux, and describe its real-world use for testing installed multimode fiber plants.
Monday, May 2, 2011
Fiber installers, splicers needed in U.S. Southeast
Eric Pearson of Pearson Technologies Inc. is recruiting professionals experienced in fiber-optic installation and splicing to help restore the many telephone lines that were damaged by the storms that recently ravaged the U.S. Southeast region.
Pearson is looking for experienced outside-plant contractors and installers for a project that will begin promptly and is expected to take approximately 90 days. Applicants are expected to have their own equipment.
Pearson can be reached by telephone at 770-490-9991 or by email at fiberguru@ptnowire.com.
Pearson is looking for experienced outside-plant contractors and installers for a project that will begin promptly and is expected to take approximately 90 days. Applicants are expected to have their own equipment.
Pearson can be reached by telephone at 770-490-9991 or by email at fiberguru@ptnowire.com.
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