FOA says, 'We have your standard right here ... on one page'

In its January 2012 online newsletter, The Fiber Optic Association stated that it is starting a program "to make standards more accessible to the world of users, contractors, designers and installers." Specifically, the association is creating one-page standards, which it says will be "simple explanations of standards that you use all the time but don't need the originals; you just need to understand how to use them.

"We'll cut out all the fluff and give you the info you need," the FOA says. And, knowing FOA founder and president Jim Hayes, I can say with a high degree of confidence that the organization will live up to that promise.

Perhaps anticipating some of the potential backlash at the prospect of a one-page standard, the FOA asked itself: "Can the FOA create standards? And what is a standard anyway?" It then produced the following definition from ISO/IEC Guide 2: 1996 (definition 3.2), which defines a standard as follows:

A document established by consensus and approved by a recognized body that provides for common and repeated use, rules, guidelines or characteristics for activities or their results, aimed at the achievement of the optimum degree of order in a given context.

The FOA then states, "FOA certification is now internationally accepted and our technical references the first choice for unbiased, technically correct information on fiber optics and premises cabling. It's certainly logical that we would next try to put some order in the chaos of current standards. FOA standards are developed by FOA members whose expertise in the technical areas covered by the standards and whose experience in the industry contributes to FOA standards being accurate, relevant and current."

The FOA didn't just announce its one-page standards in January; it offered one as well. FOA CPL1, which you can access as a PDF here, is (as promised) a one-page description of how to test installed fiber-optic cable plants. It is available for free, as the FOA's other one-page standards will be.

You can read the FOA's January 2012 newsletter here.

Video demonstrates how to test patch cords for standard compliance

In a five-minute video posted to YouTube, Adrian Young, senior technical support engineer with Fluke Networks, demonstrates the procedures for using the company's Category 5e, 6 and 6A patch-cord adapters with the DTX-1800 CableAnalyzer.

In the video Young tests a Category 6A patch cord twice and gets significantly different results. First he runs a test using the channel adapters that come standard with the DTX-1800, plugging one end of the cord into the adapter on the main unit and the cord's other end into the adapter on the remote unit. When he runs a channel test, the tester produces a "pass" result with more than 18-dB near-end crosstalk margin. As the test is taking place, Young explains why it is inadequate - because a channel test ignores the RJ-45 connection between the cord and the test adapter, and also because the channel test allows for four connections and therefore has a lot of "leeway" for performance.

He then removes the cord from the adapaters and removes the adapters from the main and remote units, and replaces them with the patch-cord test adapters. After walking viewers through the steps of setting up the patch-cord-specific test, Young runs the test on the same patch cord. This time it passes, but with a NEXT margin of 3.3 dB - a difference of more than 14 dB from the test conducted with the channel adapter.

Fluke introduced its patch-cord test adapters in spring 2011.

You can watch the video here.

Video: Five tips for keeping patch fields neat in the data center

A two-minute video posted to YouTube by Cisco Systems walks viewers through five steps they can take to reduce or eliminate patch-cord clutter in data centers. The video is narrated by Douglas Alger, an IT architect for Cisco. (See books on data center energy efficiency authored by Douglas Alger.)

Alger suggests the following steps for keeping cabling neat and tidy.

1. When designing a data center, plan for an appropriate amount of wire management.

2. Be sure to use correct lengths of patch cords when making connections. Alger advises: "Don't just allow hardware installers to grab a fistful of 8-foot cables and use them everywhere, leaving excess cable length to either hang free or be tucked away in wire management."

3. Stock multiple lengths of cable in the data center.

4. Prewire patch cords into data center networking rows, rather than waiting for those rows to be filled with hardware, "and cabling on a piecemeal basis later," Alger says.

5. Streamline patch cords in data center through hardware choices. Virtualization, for example, allows more computiner power with fewer physical servers and, therefore, less cabling.

Watch the full video below.

Cable technician finds 500-pound bear in basement

A technician for Cablevision found a 500-pound bear asleep in a home in Hopatcong, New Jersey when the technician entered the home's basement to repair a cable line.

NBC's New York affiliate, Channel 4, reported that the bear escaped the home and was later tranquilized and captured. The cable technician was not injured.

You can see NBC 4's reporting, including a video of the captured bear being brought to a truck, here.

The downside of fully connected hospitals

We have reported on several occasions, in multiple formats (articles, web seminars, guides), about the emergence and continued growth of cabling and other communications systems for healthcare facilities. Healthcare facilities, including hospitals, are becoming increasingly "connected" through the use of electronic health records, the need to send extremely large files across networks, etc. One consequence of such fully connected medical facilities is that caregivers - doctors and nurses - are carrying wireless devices with them everywhere, all the time.

Matt Richtel of The New York Times informs us that this situation may have some unintented, negative consequences for patients. In his article entitled "As Doctors Use More Devices, Potential for Distraction Grows," Richtel reports that "55 percent of technicians who monitor bypass machines acknowledged to researchers that they had talked on cellphones during heart surgery. Half said they texted while in surgery." Richtel also references incidents of "a neurosurgeon making personal calls during an operation," and "a nurse checking airfares during surgery."

The article even comes up with a name for the collection of portable devices that have the potential to distract medical providers - the "iPatient."

And I thought texting while driving was a significant offense.

You can read the complete article here.

Medical nightmare: Breast cancer patients miss surgery because of cable theft

The UK-based Daily Mail has reported that nearly 100 medical patients, including two with breast cancer, were forced to miss their scheduled surgeries because thieves stole copper cabling from a hospital's backup generator. The theft from Llandough Hospital in Penarth, south Wales was discovered on Tuesday, December 13, The Daily Mail's Emily Allen reported.

The article quoted university health board chief executive Jan Williams as saying, "NHS staff work tirelessly to care for some of the most vulnerable members of our communities. It is depressing to note that, for these thieves, the monetary value of copper is of more consequence."

You can read the full report here.

Video shows fusion splicer crashing to floor then successfully splicing fiber

A video posted to YouTube shows ILSINTECH's Swift S3 fusion splicer crashing to a hard floor then successfully fusing two optical fibers. In the 1:11 video, the splicer is picked up off a table and dropped from waist-height to the floor with a clanging thud. The splicer is then positioned upright on the floor, fibers are inserted and a fuse is completed. At the end of the video the splicer's screen shows a 0.04-dB loss reading for the successful splice.

This is obviously a self-promotional video made and posted by the folks at ILSINTECH. But it's fun to watch.