FEATURE FIBRE AND CABLE
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An example of a Certified Fibre Characterisation Engineer course, showing the amount of equipment used to deliver high quality training
telephone network (PSTN), planning to shiſt all customers over to IP telephony services by 2025 on their fibre network. Orange has set a goal of having all IP networks by 2020, and Deutsche Telekom aims to migrate all its lines in Europe to digital by the end of 2018.
Fibre-led future ‘Tis is a sea change for the industry, as millions move towards a fibre-led future,’ said Tom. ‘Tis aggressive fibre roll-out, including turn-up of dark fibre installations, is putting a lot of pressure on installers and those in quality control or planning overseeing it all. It is incredibly difficult to pin down exactly what the failure rates are for various networks as, for obvious reasons, no one wants to own up to that, but we’ve heard of numbers as high as 30 per cent. Now imagine the costs of that? Numerous repeat site visits, delays in payment, customer dissatisfaction etc. Tis will be costing tens if not hundreds of millions across Europe. Te disappointing thing is that with a little less haste and a little more testing, these failures would drop to single digit. ‘Along with many of the service providers,
we’ve recognised that much of the burying of cable is now being conducted by a vast network of contractors and sub-contractors. Tese talented folks are oſten well trained and, in many cases, subject to gaining certification before working on networks, however they are under a lot of time pressure and might struggle with the continued professional development and opportunities for training required to stay up to date on the latest fibre standards. It is true of everyone in the industry, but especially true of contractors, that time is money, so they can’t afford to attend seminars.’ To help address this problem and further
22 FIBRE SYSTEMS Issue 20 • Summer 2018
Image from a Certified Optical Fibre Installer course, showing the management of fibres into cable joint housings, a key skill for outside plant cabling
engage with contractors, the company has begun fitting out a fleet of training vehicles to visit contractors’ own depots in Europe, sharing best practices and showing how to make the most efficient use of the latest test equipment, designed for speed and ease of use. Te tour is also an opportunity to reward what the company calls ‘unsung heroes’; the contractors who oſten get bad press when their ground-works cause traffic jams.
Inspect before you connect ‘One of the best received campaigns we have delivered on the tour is called ‘Inspect Before You Connect,’ said Tom. ‘While standards bodies have established acceptance criteria for the quality and cleanliness of fibre connector end faces, technicians still face challenges with implementing these practices. Without the right fibre-testing tools, maintaining these standards or specifications is difficult, and failure at this point is driving unacceptable turn-up failure rates. ‘Contaminated connectors are the number
one cause for troubleshooting in fibre optic networks. A single particle mated into the core of a fibre can cause significant back reflection, insertion loss and even equipment damage. Tis becomes even more critical and hard to
It is especially true of contractors that time is money, so they can’t afford to attend seminars
test for in MPO fibres.’ Tis issue is something which also strikes a
chord with Mike Jones, vice president at Sticklers, who believes: ‘When it comes to fibre, cleanliness is key and a mission-critical process. A few tiny dust particles on a fibre end-face will create a gap and degrade the network, guaranteed. Fingerprint oils will increase signal losses, a small bit of ‘icky pic’ gel will ruin a splice, and the list of problems goes on. Te simplest answer is to clean and inspect every connector end-face, both sides, every time.
The biggest challenge Te biggest challenge, according to Mike, isn’t technical, it’s management. ‘Certainly, if techs don’t know they need to clean you’re going to have problems,’ he said. ‘I’ve seen older techs wipe connectors on their shirt. If they think that’s how to clean, well, their systems will crash. But the most insidious challenge is from techs not using the tools they have. I’ve spoken with techs who refused to clean because their compensation was based on the number of installs they completed each day. If those installs didn’t work, well, that “was somebody else’s problem”. Short-sighted incentives will bring your networks down.’ When it comes to cleaning, there is only one
best practice, according to Mike: ‘Clean every connector, both sides, using the right cleaning materials, every single time they are ready to be mated. Section 5.3 of IEC 61300-3-35 also instructs us to inspect the connector end-face aſter cleaning. If you’re not cleaning and inspecting, you’re not doing the job. You’re playing Russian roulette with your network.’ Te first step in preventing this, believes Mike, is with training. ‘We are working with
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