FIBER OPTIC MANIA

UTStarcom will supply broadband and telecom Solutions to Beijing E-town Area

2011-12-14T23:39:00.000+09:00

This is not the first time we write about UTStarcom. At least a couple of times earlier we have written about UTStarcom. The first news was when they made an agreement with an Indian company to provide IPTV services. Also this year UTStarcom has won a major contract from BSNL, the largest telecom operator in India.

UTStarcom is a leading provider of interactive, IP-based network solutions in iDTV, IPTV, Internet TV and broadband for cable and telecom operators. A press release on December first week appeared in UTStarcom’s website says they have entered into a strategic cooperation agreement with Beijing BDA Network and Information Co., Ltd. to provide broadband solutions and comprehensive telecom technology services for a new affordable housing development in Beijing.

FTTH growth in China is progressing well and optical fiber consumption in China is almost half of the total global consumption. This indicates a strong growth in the field of optical fiber cable deployment within China. Broadband to Beijing E-town's affordable housing development marks UTStarcom‘s first project with BBNI. BBNI was established by the Beijing Municipality to manage and operate broadband networks and telecommunication infrastructure construction of large-scale industrial projects and high-tech developments of the Beijing E-town area.

It is estimated that the similar percentage of growth in the field of telecommunication especially in fiber to the home deployments. The local Beijing government believes it is important to continue investing in the modernization of infrastructure and residential developments.

China’s commitment to provide latest broadband technologies to its citizens is laudable and it is evident through the projects being announced and are being underway in China. While the mobile companies are expanding their networks, a strong backbone fiber optic network is required to meet the bandwidth requirements.

The affordable housing development area spans a total of 12 square kilometers. Phase I construction is scheduled to begin in early 2012, which is approximately 3.9 square kilometers. This phase comprises 160 residential buildings with a capacity of 18,387 households. The rest of the area is expected to be fully developed with a mix of residential and commercial buildings in the coming years.

The press release from UTStarcom says they will provide mainly the Ethernet Passive Optical Network solutions, Packet Transport Network solutions and set-top boxes to support the construction of a high-quality and reliable communications network to enable users to enjoy audio, broadband and potentially even IPTV services.

For more information about UTStarcom, visit the Company's Web site at http://www.utstar.com

Alphion to deply GPON access network solution at IIT Kharagpur, India

2011-12-12T19:57:00.000+09:00

Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) have been playing a crucial role to promote growth of fiber optics in India for the past many years. Students coming out of IITs are the most preferred ones in the technology jobs in India and abroad. Indian Institute of Technologies offers Master courses in Optoelectronics.

IIT Khargpur is one of the prestigious engineering colleges in India where Alphion Corporation will provide its GPON based access network solution for deployment across the campus. This fiber optic deployment will interconnect departments, centers, schools, classrooms and residences within the IIT Kharagpur campus while linking it with the pan-India NKN (National knowledge network), which is the multi gigabit network for providing a unified high speed network backbone for all knowledge related institutions in India.

IIT Kharagpur was established on 1951 and currently has 29 academic departments. The campus area is around 2100 acres.There are seven old IITs in India – IIT Kharagpur, IIT Bombay, IIT Madras, IIT Delhi, IIT Kanpur, IIT Rourkee and IIT Guwahati. The new nine IITs are IIT Indoore, IIT Bhubaneswar, IIT Ropar, IIT Mandi, IIT Varanasi, IIT Patna, IIT Rajasthan, IIT Gandhinagar and IIT Hyderabad.

The initial pilot program was deployed in 2009 that has demonstrated the capability of GPON technology to deliver world class network services according to the Institute officials. This new campus wide deployment will extend the network to cover existing and new housing, classrooms, office space and open areas.

The press release from Alphion says their GPON solution will provide a wide spectrum of broadband services in the institute campus that includes e-education, internet, cable video, IPTV, telephony, campus security and WiFi hotspots. This optical fiber network connects to all hostels, enables WiFi hot spot connectivity, will be used to video stream course-ware to students and provides coverage to 30,000 people.

Alphion Corporation has been a major player to promote the growth of Fiber to the home services in India. Alphion has won major supply contracts from BSNL in the past. They develop, manufacture and market communications systems, subsystems, integrated and discrete photonic components based on their proprietary Qlight technology platform.

Alphion products are sold world wide to service providers and OEMs in the Fiber-to the-Premises (FTTP), telecommunications, CATV, fiber optic sensing, test & measurement, medical imaging, and defense system markets.

For more details, visit Alphion Corporation

Datwyler announces completion of FTTH project for Zurich Electricity Company

2011-12-01T20:28:00.000+09:00

Datwyler Cabling Solutions announced the completion of Zurich Electricity Company’s Fiber to the home project which they have undertaken. Datwyler Cabling Solutions is a leading provider of total solutions for the electrical and communications infrastructure of public and commercial buildings, of data centres and for FTTx networks.

Datwyler Cabling Solutions is a part of Datwyler Group, which is an international multi-niche player, dedicated to industrial component supply and distribution of engineering and electronic components.

Datwyler provides integrated total solutions and has positioned itself as a turnkey partner in many projects such as multi-site projects, FTTH projects (fibre to the home). The FTTH project of Zurich Electricity Company was started from 2010 October at Hardstrasse. The FTTH implementation project at Hardstrasse connected 1400 residents in 106 buildings as per the company’s press release.

Datwyler is originally a Swiss based cable manufacturer expanded the business areas and regions to different parts of the world to become an international company. The company is nearing to its 100th year of establishment. Datwyler now offer its services as a total solution provider for electrical and communication infrastructure of buildings and Fiber optic access networks.

The current FTTH construction work was efficiently completed in 2011 March and was handed over to Zurich Electricity Company. Datwyler says the construction included blowing of fiber optic cables into the pipe system and optical fiber splicing to connect the network.

The Point of Presence (POP) and the telecom shafts are interconnected by over eight kilometers of feeder cable. Approximately 20 kilometers of Datwyler’s newly developed S-Micro cable were used for the connections from the shafts to the buildings, which is knows as the drop area.

Datwyler is a leading supplier of premium quality total solutions for the electrical and ICT infrastructure in public and commercial buildings as well as for FTTx networks. To know more about Datwyler and their solutions please visit Datwyler

Estimated household penetration of FTTH in Europe by the year 2015

2011-11-24T19:45:00.000+09:00

The economic instabilities in some European countries and the troubles to the Euro has created concerns to the people involved in building next generation optical networks. Europe has been one of the promising playground for FTTH deployments and many of the countries in Europe were lagging behind on their decision to go for a full-scale FTTH roll-out.

A presentation at FTTH Council on February 2011 shows the total of the households connected directly with optical fiber (FTTH) and the households where the apartment base is connected with optical fiber (FTTB) is approximately 8.3million in Europe by the end of 2010. The same report forecasts an addition of 2.8 million FTTH/FTTB subscribers in Europe in the year 2011. The percentage increase will be approximately 34%. This means an average of 7671 households per day are connected to the FTTH/FTTB technology.

The same pace of installation may not continue for many years and there is a saturation point after which subscription to Fiber based technologies is difficult. Service providers in countries such as Japan and South Korea are facing such challenges. UAE may reach to this point very soon and more than 34% of the households in UAE are connected to the FTTH broadband.

Heavy reading market research team estimates that the FTTH/FTTB subscribers in Europe will reach to 32.6million by 2015. This will be a four-fold multiply in the figure compared to the 2010 subscribers.

Russia, France, Germany, Italy, Sweden, Netherlands, Spain, Portugal, UK, Denmark, Norway and Bulgaria tops in the number of subscribers to FTTH/FTTB technologies by the year 2015. Russia with 9.1 million houses connected will top the list followed by France and Germany. Number of subscribers in Russia will be high, but percentage of houses connected to fiber will be less in Russia compared to other countries in the same list.

If we consider the percentage of houses connected to the fiber, Slovenia tops the list with an impressive figure of approximately 36% followed by Sweden (33%) and Norway (29.5%). Russia will have 17.3% of its houses connected to the fiber by 2015.Percentage wise, Slovenia, Sweden, Norway, Denmark and Portugal tops the list of households connected with fiber followed by Slovakia, Finland, Netherlands, Bulgaria, Russia and France.

Let us hope the economic instabilities at some European countries will not do much damage to the fiber deployments and the projects already announced and are under progress. Fiber based broadband technologies have proved to act as catalysts for economic growth of a country by creating jobs and improving local businesses.

How reflections in an optical fiber cable link affect high bit rate transmission

2011-11-09T20:53:00.000+09:00

Optical network speed is increasing. Data carrying capacity of the links are increasing. Optical fiber is capable to carry enormous amounts of data, that it is difficult for common man to imagine.The capacity of an optical fiber to carry information has been utilized effectively with the introduction of wavelength division multiplexing.

Abbreviated as WDM, the wavelength division multiplexing allows different wavelengths to travel along a single fiber. This helps telecom operators to save substantial amount of money and time by not being necessary to install new fiber cables when the traffic increases in an existing network. Dense wavelength division multiplexing, DWDM uses the 1550nm wavelength region of the fiber, where attenuation is lower relatively compared to the 1310nm region.

High bit rate transmission has reached to 100 Gbps and above. Telecom operators worldwide are switching over to 100Gbps transmission, while research for still higher rates are in progress at many parts of the world. High bit rate DWDM transmission has many issues posed from the already existing optical networks. One of the major threats come from the reflections.

Reflections in an optical fiber link can occur from a splice location, connectors, equipments and or terminations etc. The total light reflected back to the laser source should be kept at minimum level to assure a stable output light. The light reflected back is known as optical return loss in the industry represented by the abbreviation ORL. ORL includes the back-scattered light. Reflection from a terminated fiber and a non-terminated fiber differ much in the quantity of reflected light. A non-terminated end reflects much light back to the source. In practical cases, an optical network is terminated at the optical distribution frame or at the termination box. Hence, while measuring optical return loss the end of the fiber under test is wrapped on a mandrel to cut the end reflection. Wrapping the fiber end practically kills the reflection at the fiber to air medium change location. The reflection at this location is called Fresnel reflection.

An optical isolator is placed after the light source that effectively removes the returned light before reaching the light source. Back-reflected light could be up to -27dB for DWDM transmission as per ITU-T standards. Note that current ITU-T standards for WDM and DWDM deal up to 40Gbps transmissions. The standards for 80G, 100G and above are yet to be published.

High bit rate DWDM transmission is sensitive to the optical return loss. Returned light back to the laser source cavity un-balances the stability of the laser output light by interfering with it. This is like the water that tries to flow backwards reduce the speed of forward flowingwater. However small it is, there will be a negative effect on the speed of the forward flowing water. Similarly the photons in the back reflected light cause disturbance to photons in the forward moving light.

Connectors used in an optical fiber cable link become dirty after exposure to the environments. Reflections from the dirty connectors and the connections at the equipments used in the link are predominant reasons for high reflections in an optical network. Generally the effect of attenuation is relatively lower for longer links. Backscattered light again scatters on its way back to the source. Studies reveal that the effect of attenuation on total ORL after 40km of the link length issame for the terminated and non-terminated fibers. This indicates the Fresnel reflection does not reach to the source for links longer than 40km.

Fiber optic cable companies in South East Asian Countries

2011-11-07T20:11:00.000+09:00

For the past many years many of the countries in the South East Asian region were importing fiber optic cables from Japan, South Korea, USA and European countries. They are the early flying birds in the technology, where the infrastructure is slowly coming to a stagnant phase. Fiber optics is relatively a new entrant in many of the south east Asian countries.

For example, the biggest single economy in South East Asia, India was importing fiber optic cables from Japan and USA mainly before the 1985s. Hindustan Cables Ltd, the first Government owned factory in India for fiber optic cables started at Allahabad that has the machineries to produce central tube fiber cables and ribbon slotted core cables. Subsequent years witnessed the growth of fiber optics in India and birth of many fiber optic cable companies. Currently there are more than 13 manufacturing companies in India actively involved in supply of fiber optic cables in the domestic market as well as engaged in export to neighboring countries.

The purpose of this post is to focus on the fiber optic cable companies in Myanmar and Bangladesh in specific. Both these countries were totally depending on China and India to a large extent for their internal consumption of fiber optic cables. Companies in India and China could get good business by exporting fiber optic cables to these countries. Price of fiber optic cables also dropped drastically due to the heavy competition in the market.

The first fiber optic cable company in Bangladesh was announced some two years before, but the commercial production has started recently. This blog has reported the birth of the first fiber optic cable company in Bangladesh, short named as BCSL – Bangladesh Cable Shilpa Limited. Two years ago, when we reported the news, the name of the company was written as BSCL – Bangladesh Shilpa Cable Limited. BCSL was in to the production of Jelly filled telephone cables after its establishment with the help of Siemens in 1967.

BCSL is now set to produce fiber optic cables that is believed to fulfill majority of domestic demand. This will lead to further competition in the market.

MPT, Myanmar Post and Telegraph has been the biggest consumer of telecommunication cables in Myanmar, which is a neighboring country of Bangladesh. Myanmar was also depend on India and China for fiber optic cables. The recent past has witnessed the birth of one fiber optic cable company in Myanmar. The name of the company is Yadanarbon fiber optic cable company.

The new fiber optic cable manufacturing company in Myanmar is situated in Yadanarbon city, outside Pyin Oo Lwin in Mandalay Division. The set up cost of the factory is estimated as US dollars 2 million. The company has five shareholder companies, including A1 Construction and Thawdar Win companies.

With four lines of production machines, Yadanarbon Fiber Optic Cable company can produce 18,000 kms of fiber optic cables in a year. The company can supply duct, direct buried and aerial cables of different fiber counts.

With the set up of fiber optic cable companies in Myanmar and Bangladesh, the South East Asian region, which may have the lowest fiber optic cable prices, will observe further competition. If quality is taken care, the competition is good for the service providers to lay more and more fiber optic cables, that will act as a catalyst to the growth of fiber optics in the region.

Why bi-directional measurement is required while testing with an OTDR

2011-11-01T22:15:00.000+09:00

Optical time domain Reflectometer is the popular and widely used equipment to measure and monitor the performance of an opticalfiber cable plant. Known in the industry as OTDR in short, the equipment is user-friendly and produces almost reliable results.

Note that we use the word ‘almost’. An OTDR uses the back-scattering principle to measure the loss of a forward propagating lightsignal. It computes the attenuation of a forward propagating signal from the back-scattered light from different lengths of the optical link and shows theresults in a graphical format. Power level is plotted against the distance in thegraph displayed on the OTDR. Distance is calculated from the refractive indexvalue set in the OTDR. Refractive index value can be changed by the testing personnel and that shall be set as per the value given by the fiber cable supplier. Note that refractive index value changes from fiber type to fibertype within the same supplier and also from supplier to supplier.

Distance is calculated using the refractive index value and the time taken to travel along the fiber and come back to the detector of the OTDR. The time taken by the light signal has to be divided by 2 in order to get the length of the fiber, since the OTDR uses back-scattered light that are returned to the detector by travelling through the same fiberback.

When we say almost reliable results, we mean an OTDRis still acceptable for the field measurements, but for really accurate measurements and in case of disputes, results shall be verified by using other methods such as cut-back method. International standards have the same opinion about measurement results using OTDR. The reason is that an OTDR use one way measurement method. The events shown in an OTDR can not be authentic unless it is measured from the opposite end and take the average of both the readings.

OTDR is used to measure the splice losses in an optical fiber cable link. Average of bi-directional measurement is required to find out the actual splice loss. ITU-T G.650.3 for the test standards for accepting the single-mode optical fiber cable links recommends bi-directional measurement. A link shall be tested from the end A and end B and then take average of both the measurements to get the actual splice loss as shown in the formula.

Real Splice loss = ½ *(A_a-b + A_b-a)

Where A_a-b: OTDR displayed splice loss value from end a to b

A_b-a: OTDR displayed splice loss value from end b to a

A_a-b is not the real splice loss. A_b-a is also not the real loss. The above equation says that to get the real splice loss, we need to take bi-directional measurement and then take the average.

MXK Platform from Zhone Technologies to support Etisalat mobile backhaul

2011-10-05T21:16:00.000+09:00

Several times we have written about Etisalat and its activities fiber optic telecommunication field in UAE. As part of its ambitious plans to cover the whole UAE and provide cost effective quality services, Etisalat has been trying to enhance the bandwidth of their networks. The long haul networks have been migrated to fiber optic networks. This transition and development of new fiber optic networks have created many job opportunities in UAE for fiber optic technicians and engineers.

We have reported that by wiring the whole UAE with fiber optic cables, Etisalat is materializing the dream of the whole nation by making it to the top of the FTTH penetrated countries. We are sure that such a bold decision to provide FTTH to all the homes in UAE needs powerful vision and strategy.

Generally, thepolicy makers in the Governments influenced by politicians and outsidelobbyists may tend not to go for a full-scale deployment of fiber optic technology.They may have their own reasons and justifications for pulling back their nations from going ahead with leading technologies. For many years we have been witnessing the determination of Etisalat to go ahead with fiber optic networksin full scale.

The results ofthe long term vision of Etisalat have started coming as we could see UAE’s name on the list of countries having highest FTTH penetration when FTTH council updated the global ranking.

Recently we read from Zhone Technologies that Etisalat will use the MXK platforms to support the mobile backhaul of LTE mobile network. Etisalat has been using MXK platform in their GPON Fiber to the home networks in UAE. Etisalat use GPON technology to provide high speed broadband services to its subscribers.

ZhoneTechnologies has been a leading supplier of broadband and Multi-services access solutions. Zhone’s high capacity FTTx multi-service systems include MXK, MALC and zNID ONTs. These solutions offer cost effectiveness and high performance to the telecom operators.

MXK platform was introduced in the year 2009. MXK platform has features such as density, throughput and switching capacity and is the first Terabit Access concentrator. MXK platform can support end to end voice, data, entertainment, social media, business, mobile backhaul and mobility services as per Zhone.

Zhone says Etisalat will use the MXK's ability to support Active Ethernet and GPON simultaneously to run mobile backhaul and FTTH services simultaneously through the system. Meanwhile, the Zhone FiberCell offering will provide network reliability.

Etisalat will use both the MXK and the Zhone FiberCell family as part of its efforts to enable a Gigabit Ethernet (GbE) link to each LTE mobile radio base station(RBS). Use of the MXK platforms will help enable Etisalat for transition of its existing circuit-based backhaul to fiber-based backhaul with minimal infrastructure overlay.

Etisalat’s fiber optic network expansion in UAE was helpful to many equipment manufacturers and solution providers to fight with the economic recession. The good thing is that Etisalat keeps on supporting the world economy by investing in new fiber optic networks.

Submarine fiber optic cable system to connect Guam, Okinawa, Kyushu and Incheon

2011-08-25T19:38:00.000+09:00

Japan's Okinawa and Kyshu will get connected to Guam and Incheon of South Korea though a submarine fiber optic cable. Global telecom giant AT&T has given contracts to Xtera Communications Inc. and Kokusai Cable Ship Co. Ltd to build the fiber optic submarine cable network, which is known in short as GOKI, abbreviated form of Guam, Okinawa, Kyushu, Incheon.

Globally leading optical networking solution provider Xtera Communications is expertized in network infrastructure that delivers maximum capacity, reach and value. Xtera offers an extensive portfolio of optical and IP networking solutions for submarine, long-haul, regional, metropolitan network applications and IP networking solutions for enterprise applications and provides solutions for enterprise and telecom companies. Xtera has experience in deployment of their solution in all five continents.

Established in 1966, Kokusai Cable Ship Co., Ltd. (KCS) is a subsidiary of Japanese telecommunication operator KDDI. KDDI owns 100% of KCS. KCS specializes in the installation and maintenance of submarine cables, oceanographic surveys and research.

The responsibilities of each companies have been defined. Xtera will provide project management, system design, system integration and the Submarine Line Terminal Equipment (SLTE). KCS will recover and re-lay portions of Transpacific-5 (TPC-5) and a retired regional submarine cable. KCS will be responsible to supply new cable and submerged equipment. TPC-5CN is a 22,500km long submarine telecommunications cable system with a transmission capacity of 5Gbps that links Japan, Guam, Hawaii and mainland USA that have landing points in Ninomiya, Kanagawa and Miyazaki in Japan, Bandon, Coos County, Oregon, San Luis Obispo, California, Keawaula/Yokohama Beach, Waianae, Honolulu, Oahu, Hawaii in United States and Tumon and Tamuning in Guam.

KCS has been engaged in installation and maintenance of submarine cables. KCS offers a wide range of services such as installation of earthquake detection systems in nearby seas in Japan, a survey on cable burial conditions and whale behavior using the autonomous underwater robot, AE2000, and the best route selection for submarine cable laying, in addition to the services using the cable ships.

Xtera and KCS together will build the 4200 km GOKI submarine cable system. The new cable system will combine approximately 1300 km of redeployed cable with remaining sections of the TPC-5 and a retired regional submarine cable. KCS had a successful experience on recovery and re-lay work utilizing a retired cable system in the Japan Sea about 3 years ago. The new submarine cable system will be fitted with Xtera's Nu-Wave XLR regional repeatered SLTE (Submarine Line Terminal Equipment) to maximize capacity. TPC-5 is one of the first generation optically amplified submarine cable system with a design capacity of two 5 Gb/s channels per fiber pair that uses dispersion-shifted fiber.

Dispersion shifted optical fibers complying with ITU-T G.653 was developed to utilize the lower attenuation window of singlemode optical fiber by shifting the zero dispersion wavelengths to 1550nm. This shifting helped to achieve low attenuation window and zero dispersion at 1550nm.. However, as the transmission rate increases and when we use DWDM, zero dispersion causes non-linear effects such as four-wave mixing. The solution to the non-linear effects due to zero dispersion was the introduction of non-zero dispersion shifted fiber complying with ITU-T G.655, which are currently deployed widely in long-haul networks.

The retired regional submarine cable system is a second generation system utilizing wavelength division multiplexers (WDM) to offer a maximum original capacity of 35 Gb/s (14 x 2.5 Gb/s). Xtera is an expert in submarine engineering to address the design challenges associated with deploying a cable system that uses fibers from existing systems with different optical characteristics. With the Nu-wave XLR terminal equipment, the re-engineered system will have a maximum capacity of at least 80 Gb/s (8 x 10 Gb/s). Combining existing and new assets while providing a significant increase in capacity enables AT&T to improve their return on the value of these submarine assets.

The selection of Xtera to supply the SLTE and provide redeployment services including: project management, system design and integration services, demonstrates the company's leadership and expertise in the design of submarine systems and high-performance submarine optical equipment.

Abbreviations and terminologies used:

GOKI: Name of submarine cable system connecting Guam, Okinawa, Kyushu, Incheon.

SLTE: Submarine Line Terminal Equipment.

KDDI: A Japanese telecommunication operator and service provider

KCS: Subsidiary of KDDI

IP: Internet Protocol, a type of communication protocol

TPC-5: Trans-Pacific Cable-5

AE2000: AQUAEXPLORER 2000 is an autonomous underwater vehicle(AUV) which have no control cables with the mother vessel. AE2000 surveys on the seabed in advance of submarine cable laying, and on burial and non-burial cables and is effective for finding out failures which have occurred, or failures which have possibilities to occur in near future.

DWDM: Dense wavelength division multiplexing

Fiber optic broadband infrastructure development news from the United States

2011-08-24T20:14:00.000+09:00

Three universities in the Mississippi State will be connected to a fiber optic cable network. The high speed communication network will link University of Mississippi, Mississippi State University and The University of Southern Mississippi. The broadband infrastructure based on fiber optic network is owned by AT&T. Communication through fiber optic cables will allow users to get more higher bandwidth services. The network connecting the universities in Mississippi is known as Mission. This research network will enable universities to access to global information resources more faster, which will provide academic competitiveness. Using AT&T’s network infrastructure is economically good to the universities.

Jackson State University, the State Department of information and Technology, The University of Mississippi Medical Centre, the Army Corpos of Engineers and the Stennis Space Centre are the other beneficiaries of the high speed broadband network.

In another development, the U.S Department of Agriculture revealed their plan to award US$ 1.14 million to the Karuk Tribe. This will help to expand the broadband infrastructure to the under-developed rural areas in the United States. The fund alloted to the Karuk Tribe to develop fiber optic network will provide high speed broadband services in the area. Karuk Tribe can have access to the fiber optic and wireless internet.

Karuk Tribe is working with Ener Tribe and West Coast affiliate for Native Link Communications to achieve roll out of fiber optic network and high speed internet access network. Under-developed regions will be benefited with the development of fiber optic networks as it will provide access to a number of facilities such as telemedicine, distance learning, communications between public safety agencies etc.

The Karuk Tribe plans to provide high speed broadband services first to the institutions and businesses and then move to the individual houses. This new fiber optic project will bring broadband service to Orleans. It is not more than one month that the development of Humboldt County’s redundant fiber optic line have started. Access Humboldt supports this new fiber optic project, which is the second tribal network in Humboldt. Yurok Tribe was already awarded one of the similar grant to increase internet access.

Karuk Tribe fiber optic network will be from Orleans to Yreka connecting the interstate 5 optical fiber cable line. With the construction of this new fiber optic line, approximately 570 tribal members and triable offices, institutions and business houses will be able to get connected to the internet services. Karuk Tribe plans to include digital phone services in the next phase of this project. Yurok Tribe’s broadband network is from Crescent to Weitchpec. It will use white space technology from Carlson Wireless.

Regarding Humboldt redundant fiber optic cable line, IPNetworks, based in San Fransisco has begun the deployment in July. The fiber optic cable has an aerial deployment route, that connects Eureka to Cottonwood. Humboldt redundant fiber optic network is connected to the Interstate 5 cable network.

Fiber optic transmitters and suppliers

2011-08-22T18:58:00.000+09:00

Fiber optic transmitters are used to launch the communication signals in the form of light through an optical fiber. Fiber optic transmitter is an electro-optic device that converts electrical signals to optical signals. The electrical signals coming from the communication device such as a telephone receiver, computer, fax machine etc are converted into equivalent optical signals and then launch into the optical fiber that carries the light all the way its length to the receiver.

The circuit at the interface of optical transmitter receives the electrical signal and processes it so that the signal complies with the source drive circuit. The source drive circuit intensity modulates the optical source by varying the current. The optical signal thus coming out of the drive circuit can be coupled in the fiber through the output interface of the transmitter.

An optical transmitter can be an Light emitting diode, LED or Laser diode, LD. The output light from light emitting diodes is not coherent like that from Laser diodes. Both LED and LD are semiconductor devices. Compact design, reliability over a wide range of environmental conditions and mechanical stresses are some of the important desired characteristics expected out of the optical transmitters.

Light emitting diodes are cheaper than Laser diodes. Basically Light emitting diodes are also laser diodes, but without a fabry-perot cavity. The absence of Fabry-Perot cavity explains why Light emitting diodes are cheaper than Laser diodes. Manufacturing of Laser diodes involves organizing the Fabry-Perot cavity that includes cleaving and polishing two sides and sawing the other two ends of the device. This manufacturing process makes the Laser diodes costlier than Light emitting diodes.

Light emitting diodes have simple design compared to Laser diodes. The spectral width of LED output light is more than that of Laser diode. LED spectral width may be in the range of 30nm to 60nm. Input light from an LED is weak. Since they have simple design and lower cost, LEDs are preferred choice where cost comes in to the priority.

LEDs used for optical communications are made from Gallium Arsenide Phosphide or in short GsAsP or Gallium Arsenide (GaAs in short). GaAsP light emitting diodes operate at longer wavelength compared to GaAs diodes. LEDs are used in local area optical networking, which is a short distance network that runs a few kilometers. Recently, Vertical Cavity Surface Emitting Laser (VCSEL) devices are replacing the role of LEDs, that also with improved speed and spectral characteristics at almost similar cost.

Light emission happens by stimulation in a semiconductor laser and results in high output power. Laser output light is narrow, coherent and the coupling efficiency is around 50% or more while launching to a singlemode fiber. Since the laser output is narrow the dispersion effects are less and it can be used for high bit rate transmission.

Two of the most commonly used semiconductor laser transmitters are Fabry-Perot laser and Distributed Feedback, DFB laser. Laser diodes can be modulated directly. Direct modulation means the output light is controlled by the current applied directly to the device. Semiconductor laser diodes are used in the long-haul optical transmission.

Some of the manufacturers for optical transmitters are given below:

MIC Technology Group

Chengdu Eagle Bio-Technology Co., Ltd

China Electronics Zhejiang Company C

Optical Network Video Technologies(Shenzhen)Co. Ltd

Guangzhou Rainbow Electronics Co. Ltd.

Visint Communication Technology Co. Ltd

Ciena’s 40G solutions to support GlobalNet Metro Optical Network upgrade

2011-08-19T07:09:00.001+09:00

Ciena’s 40G solution, 4200 Advanced Services Platform will be deployed in GlobalNet’s metro optical network upgrade. A press release from Ciena Corporaion says the Russian carrier will use Ciena’s newly developed architecture that includes 40g technology and WaveLogicTM coherent optical processors.

GlobalNet offers connectivity services to enterprises in high bandwidth sectors, including content delivery, media and storage. Based in St. Petersburg, the operator serves West Russia with a privately-owned optical network of more than 7,000 km. Its long-haul coherent 40G network is based on Ciena’s 6500 Packet-Optical Platform, a highly scalable architecture that includes Ciena’s WaveLogic coherent optical processors. These benefits are now being extended to the metro network using Ciena’s 4200 platform, providing additional capacity and flexibility to GlobalNet’s enterprise connectivity offerings.

GlobalNet is headquartered in St. Petersburg, Russia. GlobalNet is a dynamic telecommunications carrier offering telecommunications services to Russian businesses since 2008. GlobalNet is primarily focused on leasing data transmission and fiber optic lines with various capacities to large operators, ISPs and enterprise customers. GlobalNet expands to new regions every year and currently has offices in many major cities worldwide including New York, London, Paris, Moscow, Amsterdam, Frankfurt, Stockholm, Helsinki and St. Petersburg. GlobalNet operates some 7000 km of backbone lines and owns a 350 km fiber optic network in St. Petersburg. A strong expert team and state-of-the-art technologies help GlobalNet ensure high availability and quality of its telecommunications services.

With the advent of media-rich content and cloud-based services, there is a growing demand for available bandwidth from companies in the St. Petersburg area, which is only going to increase in years to come. This represents a great opportunity for GlobalNet. Ciena’s coherent technology enables GlobalNet to protect past investments and transmit four times as much information as across existing 10G networks.

By upgrading its metro network to support a total capacity of 1 terabit per second (1Tb/s), GlobalNet can meet the growing bandwidth needs of its customers and support the requirements of mission-critical applications.

Russian enterprises rely on GlobalNet to offer them reliable connectivity as and when they need it. Ciena’s optical network architecture enables GlobalNet to scale and meet their growing capacity needs in a simple and cost-efficient manner, empowering these ambitious companies to better compete in today’s dynamic market environment.

Ciena’s 4200 Advanced Services Platform is a multiservice aggregation and transport platform that can support a wide range of services (including Ethernet, SONET/SDH, storage and video), meeting all business application transport requirements over a single network with carrier-grade reliability. The inclusion of WaveLogic processors enables the platform to provide cost-effective ways to mitigate optical impairments, take advantage of existing fibre plants and scale network capacity quickly and easily.

Ciena is the network specialist. Ciena collaborate with global customers to unlock the strategic potential of their networks and fundamentally change the way they perform and compete. With focused innovation, Ciena brings together the reliability and capacity of optical networking with the flexibility and economics of Ethernet, unified by a software suite that delivers the industry’s leading network automation. For more information on Ciena products, visit Ciena

Infinera provides submarine solution to Kodiak Kenai Cable Company

2011-08-17T22:00:00.000+09:00

A press release from Infinera reveals that KKCC, Kodiak Kenai Cable Company has deployed submarine solution from Infinera. KKCC will use Infinera solution for upgrading its 1000 kilometer long submarine fiber optic cable networks that exists in Alaska. Ease of use, speed of deployment and cutting edge technology makes the Infinera's DTN an attractive solution for Submarine Line Terminating Equipment (SLTE).

KKCC is a subsidiary of Old Harbor Native Corporation. The Kodiak Kenai Fiber Link (KKFL) is a submarine fiber optic telecommunications system connecting Kodiak Island and the Kenai Peninsula with Anchorage. Landing points are located at Anchorage, Kenai, Homer, Kodiak and the Alaska Aerospace Development Corporation's (AADC) Launch Complex at Narrow Cape and Seward. The system minimizes exposure of the Turnagain Arm communication corridor to earthquakes, landslides or terrorist acts. It also connects schools, industry and commerce to the world with real-time broadband Internet. The benefits of this cable system over existing transmission media include greater reliability, secure transmission, more capacity and high-speed access, free of delay problems. Improved telecommunication delivery enhances economic opportunities throughout Alaska.

The fiber optic network runs from Seward down to Narrow Cape and back up to Anchorage serving ten percent of the population of Alaska.. KKFL provides access for broadband services to carriers, businesses, schools, and government institutions, including Alaska Aerospace Development Corporation and the nation's largest Coast Guard base on Kodiak Island. The improved telecommunications service with an Infinera network also enables KKCC to enhance economic and

educational opportunities and healthcare services throughout local communities served by KKCC in Alaska.

KKCC deployed Infinera's Submarine Solution, based on photonic integrated circuits, over a legacy undersea network including a repeaterless span of 377km. The current network will be able to scale to meet KKCC's bandwidth needs today and well into the future. The Infinera Submarine Solution can be customized to provide superior reach and optical performance. In addition, it offers space savings and the economic benefits of combining a subsea and a terrestrial system in one platform.

The Infinera DTN as SLTE provides a set of application-optimized features for upgrading submarine cable networks, including support for high-reliability trans-oceanic optical transmission, low-cost and low-latency full-band dispersion compensation optimized for greatly reduced size, integrated low-cost terrestrial backhaul and submarine network inter-connection, and undersea cable connectivity solutions optimized for operating over existing cable systems. Infinera Submarine Solutions have been deployed worldwide for customers for a total of more than 85,000 route-kilometers, including routes across the Atlantic, between North, Central, and South America, in the Middle East, and in the Indian Ocean.

Infinera specializes in Digital Optical Networking systems that are designed to continually improve the economics of optical networking by combining the speed of optics with the simplicity of digital. Infinera is unique in its use of large scale Photonic Integrated Circuit (PIC). Infinera's systems leverage PIC technology to provide customers with a service-ready architecture that enables faster time-to-revenue and greater profitability through network efficiency and the ability to rapidly deliver differentiated services without reengineering their optical infrastructure. For more information,visit Infinera

MCNC announces the second phase of the Golden LEAF Rural Broadband Initiatives

2011-08-16T19:46:00.000+09:00

North Carolina Research and Education Network (NCREN) operator, MCNC announced the start of the second phase of Golden LEAF Rural Broadband Initiatives (GLRBI) at four locations of the State on the same day. MCNC is a private NPO of NCREN. The GLRBI is a great initiative by MCNC that give accessibility of rural mass to the fiber optic communication.

The Golden LEAF Rural Broadband Initiative is financially supported mainly by the grants by the BTOP program announced by U.S Department of Commerce. BTOP is the Broadband Technology Opportunities Program by U.S department of Commerce. The financial funding came also from private donations and investments.

The second phase construction of the network will coast approximate US$144 million. The project is estimated to be finished by the year 2013. The construction of the fiber optic cable route and the high speed broadband network will create new job opportunities the area.

As we have discussed earlier also, the development of rural broadband is the most expensive and time consuming. For that reason, revenue oriented telecom operators and service providers do not prefer investment in rural broadband. The return of revenue is much slower that it takes many years to reach the break-even point. Broadband Technology Opportunities Program has the capacity to serve more than 1500 community anchor institutions, 180,000 business establishments and more than 300,000 families.

Recently many high speed broadband projects have been reported from United States. Broadband acts as a catalyst to improve the economy. It is estimated that the project will generate 2500 engineering, construction and manufacturing jobs in Northern Carolina. For a developing country, a 10% increase of the broadband penetration increases the GDP by 1.38%. Rural communities within the same State are similar to the economy of developing country.

Broadband, that also, fiber optic broadband increases access to the market information and reduce transaction cost for poor farmers and traders. Education field will get revolutionarized with the introduction of high speed broadband. Health care systems can greatly benefit with fiber optic broadband by giving access to the care-givers to specialist support and remote diagnosis. Government agencies will be in a position to provide faster weather and natural disaster warnings that will help the lives and agriculture. Remote sensing technologies and telecom networks will enable more faster and effective monitoring, resource management and mitigation of envirounmental riskes.

Alcatel-Lucent’s advanced coherent technology provides 40G to Telecom Egypt’s submarine cable system

2011-08-13T14:57:00.000+09:00

The TE-NORTH cable system, which is owned by Telecom Egypt has been upgraded to transmit 40Gbps. The submarine fiber cable system to carry 40G is equipped with Alcatel-Lucent’s advanced coherent technology. Telcom Egypt, TE is Egypt’s major telecommunications operator. The optical fiber cable system is established across the Mediterranean.

The press release appeared in Alcatel-Lucent website says that the submarine cable system connects Abu Talat in Egypt to the Marseille in France and spans over 3600km. The submarine fiber cable system has a branch at Pentaskhinos of Cyprus and includes other branching units for further expansions in the Mediterranean basin. The introduction of this advanced technology, essentially doubles the original design capacity of the system from 10 Terabits per second to over 20 Terabits per second (Tb/s).

TE-NORTH’s expanded design capacity enables Telecom Egypt to meet the growing demand of their customers and the region on this important international telecommunications route. By boosting connectivity across the Mediterranean basin, the 40G technology enhances Telecom Egypt’s ability to serve global operators whose international services transit Egypt and rely on Egypt to hub the services in the Middle East, Asia and Africa region.

40G optical transmission has many challenges compared to the 2.5G and 10G transmissions. The high speed transmission requirements demand more refined optical characteristics such as polarization mode dispersion, while lower attenuation and dispersion values help to deploy longer spans.TE-NORTH cable system with its recent 40G upgrades across the Mediterranean, will enhance the Egyptian user experience as more and more Egyptians celebrate their freedom and humanity online.

To implement the upgrade, Alcatel-Lucent used the latest 1620 Light Manager product, previously deployed as part of the original USD 125 million contract, and which was subsequently upgraded to 40G. To demonstrate the upgradability of the TE North system, a field trial was conducted on the system in 2010 with 64x40G channel capability per fiber pair, using a proprietary modulation format coupled with next-generation coherent detection which mitigated the transmission impairments in a cost-effective and automated manner.

Mixing Alcatel-Lucent’s advanced 40G coherent technology with existing 10G channels enables Telecom Egypt to best serve their customers and the end-users in the region with adequate speed and bandwidth to experience broadband multimedia services such as video with the highest quality.

Telecom Egypt started its operations in 1854 with the first telegraph line in Egypt before it was corporatized in 1998 to replace the former Arab Republic of Egypt National Telecommunication Organization (ARENTO). The Company is the largest provider of fixed-line services in the Middle East and Africa with 9.3 million subscribers as at 31 March 2011. TE provides retail telecommunication services including access, local, long distance and international voice, Internet and data, and other services. The company also provides wholesale services including bandwidth capacity leasing to ISPs, and national and international interconnection services. Telecom Egypt’s services also include the provision of narrowband and broadband internet access through its subsidiary TE Data. TE Data has active operations in Egypt and Jordan.

TE currently participates in the mobile segment in Egypt by providing mobile interconnectivity through its current, increased 44.95% holding in Vodafone Egypt, one of the three existing Egyptian mobile operators.

Syringa expands fiber optic networks to Idaho communities

2011-08-12T06:49:00.000+09:00

Syringa Networks says it will expand the optical fiber communication networks to more Idaho communities. This will provide the communities access to high speed communication services. The rural communities will experience the advantages fiber optic communication.

Syringa Networks is a privately held Idaho corporation and is headquartered in Boise, Idaho. Syringa Networks have offices in Idaho Falls, Idaho, and West Valley City, Utah. The fiber optic network expansion will include the communities of Bliss, Gooding, Shoshone, Dietrich, and Wendell, Idaho.

The company says the multi-million dollar project has already been awarded and the deployment has begun. The fiber optic network construction is scheduled to be completed by the summer of 2012.

It is estimated that the expansion of the fiber optic network will consist of 70 miles of highcount fiber cables installed underground and connected to the company's existing 400 Gbps backbone optical network. With the current expansion of the fiber optic networks, Syringa will be able deliver faster, reliable and competitive communication services to the schools, healthcare facilities and businesss establishments in the region.

Optical fiber based communication services will bring more business to the region by opening more opportunities to a broad section of the society. Syringa Networks expansion of the networks provide high speed broadband services to the communities in Idaho. Thus Syringa Networks has shown its commitment to the society.

Bringing fiber optic network to the rural areas need the real commitment. As we have discussed in previous posts also, rural deployment demand more cost, which is almost seven times costlier than building a fiber optic network in the metropolitan area. Investing in next generation networks in the rural area is risky at the side of the investor as the return of investment is much slow in rural area. While other providers talk about investing in the state at large, they tend to focus their dollars on major population centers. Syringa Networks has been very specific with the investment and their commitment to the rural communities.

Construction of the optical fiber networks will create more jobs in the region and act as a catalyst to the economical growth. It will also attract more businesses to the area. Studies have shown that broadband will help improving the GDP of a country.

Syringa Networks recently announced other projects throughout the region, including Pocatello, Idaho Falls, Boise, Caldwell, Blaine County, and Northern Utah. Syringa Networks was founded in 2002 by 12 rural telecommunications companies, committed to bringing state-of-the art technology to underserved communities.

Syringa Networks specializes in custom network solutions for businesses, providing a wide range of networking services throughout the region. Delivered over a purpose-built self-healing fiber optic network, services are available at a range of speeds from T1 to OC-192 and Ethernet at data rates ranging from 1 Mbps to 10 Gbps. Syringa Networks also offers Dedicated Internet Access (DIA), MPLS, SONET, DWDM, ATM/Frame, Fiber-to-the-Tower, and Network Equipment sales.

Maxis to deploy Alcatel-Lucent's 100G optical coherent network solution

2011-08-11T07:11:00.000+09:00

Malaysia’s leading integrated communicaiton solution provider Maxis Berhad will deploy Alcatel-Lucent’s 100 gigabit per second optical coherent network solution. Maxis has decided for the transformation of its core network that will enable the company to meet the increased data traffic. The change into 100G will give more competency to the services by providing enhanced efficiency and simplicity.

The press release from Alcatel-Lucent says the deployment of 100G in the optical backbone networks of Maxis will be the first commercially deployed in the Asia-pacific region. Maxis operates its optical fibre network, covering over 10,000 km of fibre infrastructure, within Peninsular Malaysia with part of the fibre infrastructure delivered through collaborative sharing and swapping.

The press release says that by leveraging on Alcatel-Lucent’s 100G optical coherent network solution, Maxis will be able to address the growing bandwidth requirements and data usage driven by smartphones, tablets, modems and fiber-to-the-premises services, whilst also providing high-speed connectivity and automatic restoration capabilities to enterprises for their data centres and services such as cloud computing and machine-to-machine communications (M2M). Furthermore, the new optical network will enable Maxis to provision services faster and shorten the time to market for new services requiring higher capacities and reliability.

The deployment of this optical network solution transforms the core transmission network. This is like upgrading a normal trunk road to a super highway that allows users to enjoy faster and seamless high capacity connectivity within Peninsular Malaysia.

Maxis Berhad with its consolidated subsidiaries is the leading integrated communications service provider in Malaysia with 14.1 million mobile subscriptions. Maxis’ Malaysian business has been providing a full suite of communication services on multiple platforms to satisfy the needs of individual consumers, small and medium enterprises, and large corporations in Malaysia.

Maxis has pioneered and led the Malaysian market in providing innovative mobile products and services. It was the first to launch 3G services, Maxis3G, in March 2005. In September 2006 it was among the world’s first to use HSDPA, a high-speed upgrade of the 3G network. In December 2009 it was first to introduce to Malaysia, HSPA+, the latest advancement in 3G/HSPA network capabilities, to further enhance its wireless broadband services.

Animals that attack fiber optic cable and do potential damages

2011-08-10T01:19:00.000+09:00

Fiber optic communication network is known for its advantages compared to the legacy network. Fiber optic cables are delicate as it incoroporate optical fibers made of glass. Adequate protection measures shall be taken to prevent attack from animals.

Fiber optic cable manufacturers design the cable with protection measures if required. Installation team should give enough information and feedback on the fiber optic cable route and the possible threat from animals.

Fiber optic cables can be attacked by Termites, rats, squirrels, insects, birds. Fishes may attack the underwater cables. Underground fiber optic cables are prone to attack from the rats. Rats in the tropical climate are said to be bigger in size and cause more damate to the fiber optic cable. Glass yarns provided between the inner sheath and outer sheath in one or two layers without gaps is supposed to prevent mild attacks from rats.

Glass tapes are more efficient to protect the fiber optic cables from rat bites than glass yarns. Glass yarns when applied over the stranded core or over the inner sheath may not cover fully and leaves space between the yarns giving access to the rats to the inner portions of the cable. Steel tape can prevent the rats and squirrels.

Chemical dopants can effectively keep away the rats. Chilli powder is a proven rodent repellant chemical. Squirrels attack the aerial cables when it pass through the cable route pass through the rural areas. Recently, one of the reports from Level 3 Communications say almost 17 percent of the fiber failure reasons are due to the damages caused by the squirrels.

When the animals attack fiber optic cable, whatever be the reasons, optical fibers are exposed and further attack will cause fiber break and ultimately loss of communication link. This results in huge loss of revenue and also the reputation and reliability of the network operator. Fiber break causes internet connection loss and shut down of many works and businesses sometimes to the whole country.

Some insects also destroy fiber optic cables. In Japan, one of the reported damages of fiber optic drop cables is from Cicada. Japanese cable manufacturers have developed cicada resistant fiber optic drop cables.

Threat to the fiber optic cable is not limited only from animals, but human beings also. Inadvertant errors can be understood and excused, but when somebody destroy the fiber optic cable purposely, it becomes a crime. There was a news from Singapore that one of the ex-employee of a major telecom group in Singapre was the person who cut many number of FTTH cables in Singapore. We can count such humans to the group of rodents and insects.

Use of Lead in fiber optic cable sheathing and alternative methods

2011-08-09T06:58:00.000+09:00

Lead sheathed fiber optic cables are not common and the end-users for such cables are often limited to petrochemical projects. Petrochemical projects, where the presene of many chemicals, acids etc can not be avoided is sensitive area of installation of fiber optic cables. The outersheath of the fiber optic cable shall be capable to resist the harmful effects of chemicals and acids in the outdoor environment.

Lead is known for its acid resistance. Lead can be extruded and can be made a sheath in fiber optic cables that will give enhanced acid resistance characteristics to the cable. Lead, which is abbreviated as Pb in the atomic table of elements, is an excellent moisture barrier also. Lead sheathed fiber optic cables perform well when laid under water. As the lead protection is a metallic protection that is fully covered without the use of overlapping unlike corrugated steel tape or aluminium tape, moisture resistane performance of lead sheathed cables are good.

A lead sheathed cable will have an inner sheath often done with poly vinyl chloride (PVC) or polyethylene either normal or flame retardant grades. Lead sheathing is done over an inner or intermediate sheathing, called as bedding in the extrusion industry. Lead sheath is covered with another layer of polyethylene or PVC.

Lead (Pb) is a heavy metal, but at the same time it is soft. The weight of lead sheathed cable is the major disadvantage and the installation becomes more difficult. Most often, lead sheathed cables are armored by using galvanized single steel wires that gives required pulling strength. The density of extrusion grade lead used in the sheathing of fiber optic cables is approximately 11.3g/cc. The density depends on the alloy type and combination.

Since the density is high, the lead's contribution to the weight of a wire armored fiber optic cable is almost more than 50%. For example, if the inner sheath over which the lead has to be extruded is 10mm, and the lead thickness is 1.5mm, the weight of lead will be approximately 615kg per kilometer of the cable. Fiber optic cables are known for their low weight and reduced diameter. The advantage of low weight and reduced diameter makes fiber optic cable installation easier and faster.

There is a concern of environmental pollution from the lead. Lead materials are tagged as poisonous and dangerous. People who argue in favor of lead may disagree the above statement. The operators who work in a lead extruder has to take extra precautions to avoid harmful effects of the lead extrusion. Some cable manufacturers provide milk to the operators to drink. Consumption of milk is said to reduce the poisonous effects of lead.

Lead extursion process is complicated and need great care during process. The pipe extrusion method makes it difficult to maintain the thickness of lead sheath throughout the length. A thickness of 1.5mm nominal is generally provided. Recently the thickness and concentricity of sheathing can be well controlled with the use of latest technology in the lead extrusion process.

Extrusion grade lead comes in the form of ingots are loaded in to the electrically heated melting pots. The heating temperature is around 380 degree C. Melting point of lead is approx. 327 degree C.

Lead sheathed fiber optic cables are expensive, but worth if the installation conditions demand such a high quality cable. Alternative to lead sheathed cables have been proposed by several cable manufacturers. Some of the lead free cable designs include a combination of special polymers and aluminium tape. Polyamides are known for their excellent hydrocarbon resistance. Aluminium tape is a good mositure barrier.

The advantage of lead free alternative designs are the lower cable weight and reduced diameters, which can be beneficial in the installation. The civil construction cost is the highest contributor to the fiber optic deployment project cost. If heavier and bigger lead sheathed cables need extra civil works that will increase the project cost substantially, better to look for competitive and alternative lead free design options. The job here is to ensure the desired performace parameters for the fiber optic cable.

As we wrote above, advantage of lead sheathed fiber optic cables is their good water resistance. Lead sheathed cables can be laid in water for many years, probably more than the guaranteed life of optcal fibers and the outer sheathing materials used to construct the cable. If that performance comes with an extremely high cost, buyers can look for alternative designs.

Door County gets fiber optic cable

2011-08-08T07:35:00.000+09:00

Cellcom has revealed its plan to lay fiber optic cables in Door County. The construction of the fiber optic network in the county will be finished by the end of the year. According to Cellcom the fiber optic cable will be laid from Green Bay to Sturgeon Bay.

Fiber optic connectivity will provide high speed internet access through fiber optic broadband. Optical fibers can carry huge amount of data as the bandwidth of an optical fiber is more than the legacy transmission medium. Therefore optical fibers have been widely deployed all over the world by major telecom operators replacing the legacy networks.

The news appeared in Cellcom’s website says that the laying of fiber optic cables will deliver high speed internet access, increase capacity of data services, expand wireless network and prepare the network for wireless 4G technology in the future.

Advantage of fiber optic cables over other medium of communications are obvious. The major advantage of fiber optics is its high data carrying capacity. Light weight and reduced diameter cables are another advantages from the view point of installation. As the fiber optic cables carries light signals the loss over long distance is less advantaging towards clearer communication between two points. Advantage of using optical signal for communication is the near impossibility of signal tapping, that makes the communication more reliable and secure.

Cellcom and Door County Economic Development Corporation have discussed with several city and county officials to plot the optical fiber cable route that will run through the Sturgeon Bay Industrial park and pass the shipyards and other high demand users.

Optical fiber broadband will give a new dimension to the businesses in the county. Fiber optic broadband opens up new business opportunities in the area. Thus investing in fiber optics is a wise decision, though it may seem expensive at the initial stage. The enhanced communication and reliability of networks will attract new businesses to the area.

As we have written in a separate post about the cost of building fiber optic broadband, telecom operators and service providers need more commitment to invest in the construction of optical networks in rural areas due to higher deployment cost and slow return of investment. Cellcom has shown that kind of commitment to this project. We say commitment as deployment of fiber optic networks in rural area is not all about making profit out of this business. The investor needs to wait more years to reach the break even compared to the metropolitan fiber optic deployments.

Cellcom says that the work from Wequiock to Brussels on the first leg of the route has began in this year March and around 50% of the work has been completed. The contract to lay fiber optic cable for the second phase of the project has been awarded to Michels Communications. The second phase of the fiber optic installation will bring fiber optic connection from Brussels to Sturgeon Bay. Contract has been made with Holtger Bros., Inc for around 4.8 kilometers length installation. The work for this route will begin at Oregon Street and 4th Avenue in downtown Sturgeon Bay. The fiber optic cable will pass through Sturgeon Bay ship canal and finish at S. Duluth Street.CTH S. Cellcom has made partnership agreement with Sturgeon Bay Utilities and Door County to utilize their existing facilities. The final stage of this fiber optic project will be extending to Gills Rock.

UTStarcom provides GEPON products to Indian telecom operator BSNL

2011-08-07T03:06:00.000+09:00

UTStarcom Holdings Corp. announces its successful participation in BSNL’s FTTH service in India. India being at the middle of growth in telecommunication infrastructure building is supposed to be a potential market for equipment and service providers from around the world.

UTStarcom says that it has provided the Gigabit and Ethernet Passive Optical Network GEPON products to support Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited, BSNL on its fibre to home services. UTStarcom is a leading provider of interactive, IP-based network solutions in iDTV, IPTV, Internet TV and Broadband for cable and telecom operators. UTStarcom is a Beijing based equipment provider whose solutions enable its customers to rapidly deploy revenue generating access services using their existing infrastructure, while providing a migration path to cost effective, end-to-end IP networks. UTStarcom has research and development operations in both China and India.

During the sixth annual FTTH conference that was held in India in May 25 and 26 at Hotel Taj palace, India’s telecom minister Mr. Kapil Sibbal has announced massive broadband deployment plans the Indian policy makers were preparing. Kapil Sibbal’s vision on broadband is that the service should be available to the common man in India. The pricing should be so attractive to the mass to opt for broadband. The challenge for the Fiber optic broadband deployment is the price in a highly competitive market like India.

Mr. R.K Upadhyay, the newly elected Chairman and Managing Director of BSNL told in the conference that every Indian village having more than 500 people will be wired with fiber optic cables. In a highly populated country like India, almost every village will have more than 500 population. In order to boost up the broadband activities in India, a special organization that will manage the fiber optic deployments through out India will be formed with the help of public and private participation. Mr. R.K Upadhyay was the ex-chairman of Telecommunications Consultants India Limited, TCIL, an engineering implementation wing under India’s ministry of communication. His extensive experience in the field of telecommunications and project management will help BSNL to lead the nation with the construction of next generation networks and successful deployment of fiber optic broadband in India.

Already BSNL has already installed FTTH systems in nearly 134 cities across India to provide high speed Data, Video, Voice, Cable TV services to its FTTH customers. BSNL hopes to have around 6 million customers by the year 2015. Fiber Optic Mania had reported BSNL’s launch of FTTH services in Kochi, one of the port city in the Souther state of Kerala.

UTStarcom provides GEPON equipments. In India, BSNL use GPON and GEPON technologies. According to experts, both have specific advantages depending on the requirement of service provider. The FTTH service in India works with the help of a ring based optical fibre network that ensures high speed connectivity. Fiber To The Home broadband service can provide a downlink of 2.56 Gbps and uplink speed of 1.25Gbps.

UTStarcom has been a leading supplier of broadband technology to BSNL. It has supplied and integrated Multi Play Broadband networks to provide triple play services. FTTH based broadband network is an extension of broadband services. BSNL is World's 7th largest Telecommunications Company that provide a range of telecom services in India such as Wireline, CDMA mobile, GSM Mobile, Internet, Broadband, Carrier service, MPLS-VPN, VSAT, VoIP services, IN Services etc.

BSNL has about 46 million basic telephone line capacity with more than 38302 fixed exchanges. BSNL has laid around 684755 route kilometer of optical fiber cable. BSNL has the strength of highly qualified engineers whose presence will be important to the successful deployment of fiber optic broadband in India.

UnisonFibre deploys second stage of fiber optic network in Rotorua

2011-08-06T09:55:00.000+09:00

Second stage of the fiber optic cable deployment has started through Westbrook, Owhata and Mangakakahi. Rotorua is a city in the bay of Plenty region of the North Island of New Zealand with a population of around 56,000. Rotorua is one of the major tourist destinations in New Zealand.

The 36 kilometer fiber optic cable will provide high speed broadband services to the residents and business houses in Rotorua. The fiber optic broadband deployment is done by UnisonFibre, who is a member of New Zealand Regional Fibre group that supports New Zealand Government initiative of Ultra-Fast Broadband Fiber optic network.

New Zealand Government has announced Ultra-Fast Broadband fiber optic network to provide enhanced latest communication technologies to health service sector, education and telecom.

UnisonFibre is the telecommunication business division of Unison Networks. UnisonFibre builds backbone fiber optic networks in New Zealand to provide an open access fiber optic network. Open access network concept is getting popularity throughout the world as it reduces complexity and integrate network elements. Multiple service providers can use the same network still keeping their brand identity and individuality of the services that are offered to the subscribers. For the subscriber, open access networks at the premise end gives more choices to select service providers according to his choice and availability. Open access network concept will be a catalyst for growth of fiber optic based broadband services and will increase competition in the broadband market.

The broadband deployment has been growing globally. Broadband means increased or broad bandwidth that enables the telecommunication signal to carry more data, image, video and graphics. More or increased bandwidth than the conventional telecommunication technologies refers to the broadband. A wide range of communication services can be transmitted through broadband. As the bandwidth of an optical signal widens, its data carrying capacity also increases, keeping the same quality for the channels being transmitted.

The old telephone communication system transmittes 56 kbps over a voiceband telephone line. Today Internet speeds of 100 Mbps has become common in many countries and some of the service providers have already moved to 1 Gbps. This increase in data carrying capacity is due to the evolutions happened in the broadband technologies. Broadband allows highspeed transmission between internet application centers and computers and other communication devices.

UnisonFibre’s open access fiber networks run along with their electricity networks in Hawke’s Bay, Taupo and Rotorua. UnisonFibre’s fiber optic backbone are existing in Napier, Hastings and Havelock North that provides services to the local business houses. In Taupo, UnisonFibre connects to four zone located at Centennial Drive, Fleet Street, Rununga and Taupo South. In Rotorua, the fiber optic backbone is between three zone substations at Biak St, Rotorua and Arawa Streets.

GPON market to grow in Europe and decline in India and Middle East by 2015

2011-08-05T23:56:00.000+09:00

The market research firm Infonetics finds growing demand for 2.5G GPON equipment in the Europe. The growth for Gigabit Passive Optical Network equipment in Europe will be mainly driven by major telecom operators such as France telecom and Deutsche Telekom in the western Europe and operators like Beeline, Northwest Telecom, Sibiritelecom, Comstar and NGTS in the Eastern and Central Europe had started migration from the fiber to the building technology to the fiber to the home technolgy.

Gigabit Passive Optical Network is a fiber access technology based on the concept of accessing from a single point to multiple points. The single point is the central office and the multiple points are the optical network terminals placed at the subscriber’s premises. To achieve single point to multiple point transmission, GPON technology uses optical splitters.

Typical GPON splitting ratio is 1x64. This means one single fiber is split in to 64 fibers to give optical connection to 64 customers. Optical signal is transmitted from the central office through one fiber for a certain distance depending on a number of factors such as subscriber density, geography etc and then using an optical splitter, it gets diverted into 64 premises. Though this is the theoretical case, practically, two stage splitting configurations are sometimes more economical. Splitter can be put near to the subscriber’s premise protected inside a street cabinet or a pedestal closure or inside an underground closure. If an aerial distribution network configuration is selected, splitters can be accommodated inside an aerial closure.

Infonetics reports strong growth in the European countries while India and Middle East countries may show a decline in GPON equipment demand by 2015. The reason is BSNL and UAE’s leading telecom operator etisalat had already procured large numbers of Optical line terminal equipments for the central office and Optical network terminals for the subscribers connectivity. Once the homes are connected with optical fibers, these operators will concentrate on getting the customers subscribed to their FTTH services to create revenue.

The market research analysis shows that India may see a rapid growth in terms of FTTH broadband subscribers. The number of subscribers will be approximately 8.5 million in India, the middle east, Europe by 2015. The revenue from 2.5 GPON will grow at a CAGR of 16% till 2015 in western Europe and 13% CAGR at Central and Eastern Europe.

Infonetic’s report gives details of vendor market share and forecast of GPON equipments in the key markets. There is a strong growth and demand now in India, Middle East and Europe for GPON equipment. The report gives further details of 2.5 and 10G GPON Optical line terminal equipments and network terminals in FTTB/MDU and FTTH applications.

Ericsson to supply EDA 1500 GPON to du in UAE

2011-08-03T22:39:00.000+09:00

du is the second biggest telecom operator in UAE, who is in to the mobile broadband market. du has been investing for the last few years in optical fiber networks to provide FTTH services to the subscribers in United Arab Emirates.

A recent press release from du says it had made a deal with Ericsson to supply GPON to the central offices. The Gigabit passive optical network, GPON is a widely deployed FTTH network technology worldwide. GPON evolved from the old BPON, Broadband passive optical network. EPON evolved to become the GEPON, which claims more number of subscribers due to the large scale deployment in East Asian countries such as Japan, South Korea and China. Recently China has also started deploying GPON.

Ericsson will supply its EDA 1500 model GPON equipment that will help du to continuously deliver the best subscriber experience. du is the first in UAE to deploy Ericsson’s EDA 1500. du will provide faster internet connections and du TV services to its subscribers in UAE.

UAE has almost 32% houses penetrated with fiber optic broadband when FTTH Council updated the list of countries having more than 1% houses penetrated with FTTH or FTTB/LAN broadband network. In UAE, the houses and business premises are connected with FTTH. Korea and Japan tops in the chart updated by FTTH Council if FTTH and FTTB are combined. Actually, if FTTH is taken alone, UAE has the highest penetration of FTTH in the world. Telecom operators in UAE such as Etisalat and du has done their homework well to make the country proud.

Ericsson’s EDA 1500 GPON equipment has high capacity and is an all IP network. All IP based networks are essential for the successful delivery of IPTV services. In UAE, the demand for performance enhanced services such as IPTV with high definition has been on rise. EDA 1500 provides a range of Optical network terminals for different kind of markets. Single family and small business units and also Fiber to the home to the Fiber to the building applications can be covered in the same GPON equipment.

GPON uses ATM, GEM and Ethernet protocols and supports high bit rate transmission. An efficient GPON equipment at the central office is the key to deliver and manage optical fiber based high speed broadband services. Ericsson offers deep fiber access solution to du. Deep fiber access solution from Ericsson includes EDA 1500 GPON solution, Passive optical components and related services.

du builds the FTTH network as an open access network. Open access network gets wide popularity worldwide. Open access network business model has many advantages in managing the networks and provides the subscribers more flexibility and choice for selecting the service provider.

du’s activities in the fiber optic broadband sector will boost up the competition in the UAE market. The competition will give more choices to the subscribers to choose the service provider. Monopoly by a service provider is not good for the growth of broadband in any market. That is the reason communication ministries decided to open up the market for healthy competition that will ultimately benefit the subscriber.

Clearfield supplies FxDS to Venture's FTTH deployment project

2011-08-02T07:02:00.001+09:00

Venture Communications Cooperative will deploy fiber to the home broadband technology that will provide high speed broadband services to the residents of South Dakota. This will provide fiber optic broadband services to the rural mass of South Dakota. Venture Communications Cooperative is based in Highmore, S.D in the United States.

Venture has made an agreement with Clearfield Inc. for their FTTH deployment. Venture Communications Corporation is a broadband stimulus award winner in the United States. The FTTH broadband project will be in the 900 square miles serving communities in North Central S.D. The fund for the project is organized from the ARRA broadband stimulus award of US$ 7.0 million.

The FTTH deployment by Venture has already begun in the spring and is estimated to be completed by the last quarter of this year. Once broadband deployment is completed and started offering services the enterprises and residents in the area will enjoy the advantages high speed transmission services such as VoIP, high-speed internet, IPTV, IP video, voice messaging and long distance telephone.

Rural broadband development has many challenges and the cost of deployment is much higher compared to the urban area FTTH development. In yesterday’s post in Fiber Optic Mania, we have discussed the cost of fiber to the home broadband development in different geographical locations. The development cost is almost 6 times higher at plain terrain suburban areas compared to that at metropolitan FTTH development cost. If the suburban area is hilly, the development cost will go further high and it is almost 7 times costlier. Service providers need to wait for long years to get the return of the investment in rural areas. The customer driven market is comparatively less in rural areas. In metropolitan areas, the broadband market demand is driven by the customers and the return of revenue is faster.

Due to high build up cost in the rural areas, there were no video products for rural consumers. Rural customers were satisfied with coaxial cable based television services. Clearfield's support to Venture is important to this project as the companies experience in supplying FTTH equipments will provide Venture more flexibility and innovation in the fiber management.

Clearfield's FieldSmart FxDS Fiber Crossover Distribution systems are efficient in deploying and distributing optical fibers from the central office. FxDS installation is an integral part of the fiber to the home broadband deployment. The FieldSmart FxDS frame is being used in the Faulkton FTTH deployment, while FieldSmart FxDS panels are being utilized in Cresband and Orient. Clearfield's solutions are cost effectiveness and the FxDS is superior in fiber management. Ease of access and cleanliness are other advantages of Clearfield's fiber management solutions.

Venture's current fiber optic deployment is an overbuild of existing network that covers three telephone exchanges and more than 900 access lines in and around Faulkton, Orient and Cresband, S.D

The “Free” Miracle: How Your Unbundling Costs Pay for Your FTTH Deployment

Compact, scalable outside plant optical distribution cabinet from Telect cost-effectively delivers FTTH.(NEW PRODUCTS): An article from: FTTX Mindspeed and Sumitomo Electric improve cost and simplicity of deploying FTTH.(FTTX)(Mindspeed Technologies Inc. and Sumitomo Electric Industries Ltd. ... An article from: Fiber Optics Weekly Update
Optipop R OptiTap Fiber Optic Hardened Connector Cleaning

What is the cost of Fiber to the home broadband deployment?

2011-08-01T21:03:00.000+09:00

One of the strong disadvantages of fiber optic communication was the high development cost. It was especially true in the case of Fiber to the home technologies. Due to the high deployment cost of FTTH broadband, high speed high bandwidth services remain accessible to those subscribers who could afford to pay a high monthly charge to the service providers. This is the disadvantage of the fiber optic based broadband even today in many of the geographical areas.

The cost of FTTH broadband deployment varies according to the geographical area. The cost implications are not limited only to the metropolitan and rural areas but the hilly and plain terrains. A scientific study and approach of service providers in their respective regions of services will help them figure out to decide what kind of broadband technology or last mile deployment would be suitable and economical to make reasonable revenue.

Fiber to the home broadband to the village or suburban residents　need more deployment cost compared to that of metropolitan FTTH deployments. The studies conducted on deploying optical fibers to different geographical areas say, on a comparison, the metropolitan area FTTH broadband deployment cost per household on an average is approximately US$ 1000. Metropolitan areas have much densely populated clusters of multi-dwelling apartments. Hence the deployment to such multi-storey buildings is easier compared to any other scenarios. Advantage in the case of metropolitan installation is that the urban population tends to opt for higher bandwidth services if available and thus almost all of the investment by the telecom operators turns in to revenue generating connections, though it is not directly connected to the deployment cost.

The low deployment cost of FTTH in the metropolitan area is due to the more number of high density population in less area. The cities in the plain terrain, where the geographical land is almost flat, the FTTH broadband deployment cost per household on an average is approximately US $2700. We can say the FTTH broadband deployment cost in such cities is almost 2.7 times higher than metropolitan areas. Comparing the cities in the hilly areas, the deployment cost per household is cheaper in plain terrain cities due to the less possibility of diverse geographical landscape. Deployment cost to the city households in the hilly areas is almost 1.2 times costlier than that in the plain terrain city households and 3.1 times costlier than that in the metropolitan deployment.

Another FTTH broadband deployment scenario is at the suburban areas or the city outskirts, where the distance between the houses is more than that in the metropolitan areas. Suburban areas also have high density multi dwelling units, but the distance from the central office is more and the access is much more difficult than that in the case of urban deployment. Average FTTH deployment cost to plain terrain suburban or village household is approximately US$ 6300, which is almost 6 times costlier than the metropolitan FTTH deployment.

The highest FTTH deployment cost is claimed by the suburban households in the hilly geographical areas. The development cost is approximately US$7000 per household. This is almost 7 times costlier than the metropolitan area FTTH development and 1.2 times costlier than the plain terrain suburban FTTH development cost. The breakup of cost components shows the central office equipment costs are almost same in all the above development scenarios, though metropolitan central office installation shows slightly lower cost compared to all others. Cable cost is also less for the metropolitan FTTH development by almost half of the other scenarios. The big difference is in the construction cost, which is the cable running cost.

FTTH council studies have also shown that the major contribution to the cost comes from the civil works, which is the construction works. The cost of fiber optic cable in an FTTH project is less than 6% while the cost of civil works claims approximately 70% of the project cost. Thus the new innovations need to happen in the cable designs that will reduce the civil works drastically, so that the overall FTTH project cost will come down.

This post might have given you a rough idea of how the FTTH broadband development cost varies according to the geographical conditions and population density in general. You may have something different to say than that is written here. Welcome with your suggestions.

Zayo’s optical networks to support PeakColo’s Cloud-computing services

2011-07-31T14:29:00.000+09:00

Zayo has signed a multi year agreement with PeakColo to provide dark fiber service to serve the core connectivity in PeakColo’s western area network. These optical fiber connectivity will enable PeakColo to enhance the speed and performance of its cloud services to customers connected served through Colorado and Arizona data centers.

Zayo is a Louisville based bandwidth, colocation and dark fiber infrastructure services provider in the United States. Zayo’s networks supports enterprise and regional businesses, federal and local govt. agencies over regional, metro and fiber to the tower (mobile tower) networks.

PeakColo provides cloud based solutions and services. PeakColo also provides infrastructure-as-a-Service, IaaS, which is used for cloud based solution deployments and as the foundation for Software-as-a-Service and Platform-as-a-Service.

Cloud computing requires laptop, tablet computer or desktop computer, smart phones or similar computing devices with an Internet browser that enables the user to access a cloud system. Cloud computing eliminates the need for installing software applications on individual user computing devices. Cloud computing works on the principle of shared configurable computing resources such as servers, storage devices, applications, services and networks.

It is estimated that almost more than 37 percent of large business firms have already adopted the Cloud based solutions. The recent studies conducted by CDW shows the trend towards cloud based service offerings. With more business houses choose the cloud based services, the network infrastructure to support cloud computing becomes an essential part. PeakColo has experienced 300 percent year-over-year growth in the cloud based solutions and they were on the look for reliable network services that could be deployed quickly and Zayo was the solution they found.

A recent press release from the Zayo group says that the company is strategically positioned to deliver the bandwidth infrastructure necessary to support this increasing demand. Zayo provides transport, dark fiber and other bandwidth services over its network footprints in 31 states plus Washington D.C.

PeakColo’s requirement for an efficient network to support their cloud based business is an example of why dark fiber makes sense for many companies. The vast bandwidth and data carrying capacity of optical fibers makes them a preferred choice for new generation networks. applications of optical fiber finds its way to data centers to the long haul telecommunications and wherever services require more bandwidth that legacy networks are unable to meet.

Dell'Oro finds strong market growth for 40G and 100G DWDM Shipments

2011-07-30T06:49:00.001+09:00

Dell'Oro market research analysis estimates that over the next five years the global optical Dense Wavelength Division Multiplexing equipment revenue will reach US$ 11.0 billion. This corresponds to a compound annual growth rate of 12% for the next five years.

Dell'Oro group estimates that there will be a big demand for high capacity transmission through optical fibers and telecom operators have to meet the growing bandwidth demand through the existing optical fibers. This will drive them towards higher bit rate optical transmissions of 40Gbps and 100Gbps.

The demand for DWDM equipments to support high bit rate transmission will grow and 40 and 100G DWDM shipments will grow an average 50% annually. There is a strong market for both 40 and 100 gigabit DWDM.. In fact, many telecom operators are choosing 100G systems than 40G. This trend will create a market of US$ 2.0 billion by 2015.

Wavelength division multiplexing is a transmission technology emerged in optical transmission to send more signals through the same optical fiber. Carriers do not need to deploy extra fiber optic cables to increase the capacity to meet the bandwidth demand. Compared to the conventional multiplexing method of Time Division Multiplexing, Wavelength division multiplexing increases the capacity of an optical fiber multiple folds.

Dense Wavelength division multiplexing is the advanced form of WDM where the channel spacing is reduced further. ITU-T G.984 recommends channel spacing for DWDM. Optical fiber has the ability to carry multiple channels at the same time, without mixing on its way to the destination end for reasonably longer lengths.

The Dell'Oro Group’s 5-Year Forecast Report offers a complete overview of the Optical Transport industry with tables covering manufacturers' revenue, average selling prices, unit shipments Tributary/Line or Wavelength shipments (by speed up to 100 Gbps). The report tracks DWDM long haul terrestrial, WDM metro, multiservice SONET/SDH, and optical switch equipment. To know more about the report and purchase, please visit http://www.delloro.com/.

On a similar report from Dell'Oro, the market research firm finds that 40 GE will penetrate all layers of data center switching by the year 2015. According to this report by Dell'Oro Group says, the L2-3 Ethernet Switch market is forecast to approach $25 billion in 2015, with the future growth being driven primarily from sales of Ethernet switches optimized for larger data center deployments. By 2015, the L4-7 Application Delivery Controller market is expected to exceed $1.5 billion with the virtual appliance segment having the most robust growth over the forecast period.

The report also shows that the Application Delivery Controller segment is expected to outpace the overall switch market during the forecast period. Vendors such as A10, Brocade, Cisco, Citrix, F5, Radware, Zeus (recently purchased by Riverbed), all have product offerings in this segment.

The Dell'Oro Group 5-Year Forecast Report offers a complete overview of the Ethernet Switch industry with tables covering manufacturers' revenue, average selling prices, and port/unit shipments (by speed Fast Ethernet, Gigabit Ethernet, 10 Gigabit Ethernet, 40 Gigabit Ethernet, 100 Gigabit Ethernet) for Layers 2-3 (both managed and unmanaged), and Layers 4-7. Dell'Oro group was founded in 1995 and the headquarter is in Silicon Valley. Dell'Oro group with their strong relationship with telecommunications and networking companies brings out most accurate market research data.

Frontier Communications Corporation selects ADTRAN for equipment supply

2011-07-29T00:46:00.000+09:00

US based equipment supplier ADTRAN, Inc. will supply broadband equipments to Frontier Communications Corp. Frontier Communications Corp. is upgrading their broadband delivery capabilities and it targets the communication networks it acquired from Verizon in 14 states in United States. By upgrading the network, Frontier Communications Corp. will be able to deliver 3 to 4 Mbps downlink and 1 Mbps uplink bandwidth to approximately 85% of its subscribers in the region within the next three years.

As per the supply contract, ADTRAN will supply its Total Access 5000, 1200, and 1100 systems to support the three-year effort. Frontier will use the equipment to create a fiber to the node (FTTN) network that will expand broadband service capabilities across the former Verizon footprint.

In a passive optical network, the optical signal transmitted through one optical fiber can be split in to several, typically 64 Nos, and can connect to the subscribers. Thus the optical fiber density at the feeder section that is from central office to the splitter point can be reduced drastically. Thus if a single optical fiber carries 2.5 Gbps optical signal and then split in to 64 numbers to serve 64 customers, each subscriber will get 40 Mbps

bandwidth. The simple calculation is as shown below;

2.5x1024 = 2560 Mbps

2560 Mbps divided in to 64 Nos = 40 Mbps (64 subscribers can get 40 Mbps). In the case of Fiber to the premise configuration, generally the splitting is done near to the premises and thus the number of optical fibers from the central office to the premise can be reduced significantly.

In a passive optical network, splitting can be done either at the central office or near to the premise on the street or under the basement of an apartment. If the area has single dwelling units, splitting can be done inside the underground drop closure or on the aerial pole depending on the network configuration. Splitting can be done in two stage also, typically 1X4 or 1X8 at the central office and 1X8 or 1X16 at the street cabinet or drop closure. Thus passive optical networks give greater flexibility.

ADTRAN, Inc. is one of the leading global providers of networking and communications equipments. ADTRAN's Total Access 5000 provides FTTP with a GPON 2.5 Gbps Optical Line Terminal (OLT) solution, including a full line of Total Access 300 GPON Optical Network Terminals (ONTs).

ADTRAN has more than 1,700 last mile solutions that will be useful to the telecom operators and network providers to build effective communication systems. ADTRAN networking equipment solutions enable voice, data, video, and Internet communications across copper, optical fiber, and wireless network infrastructures. ADTRAN solutions are widely deployed by carriers, distributed enterprises and Small and Medium-sized Businesses.

ADTRAN solutions are currently in use by every major U.S. and global service providers. ADTRAN is headquartered in Huntsville, Alabama, with sales offices strategically located throughout the United States and around the world.

euNetworks fiber optic networks to support Vodafone’s LTE roll out in Germany

2011-07-28T00:40:00.000+09:00

euNetworks has reached to an agreement with Vodafone Germany to deliver optical fiber based services in Franfurt, Berlin and Munich. By strengthening the fiber optic network Vodafone ensure higher bandwidth for its LTE deployments. EuNetworks will provide extensive metropolitan fiber optic network access to Vodafone.

LTE, Long term evolution is the brand name of technologies comprising 3rd Generation and 4th Generation mobile networks. Long term evolution provides 100 Mbps downlink rates and 50 Mbps uplink rates apart from less than 10 ms RAN round-trip times. Some of the advantages of Long Term Evolution in mobile networks high throughput, plug and play, frequency division duplexing, Time division duplexing and low latency.

euNetworks Group Limited provides bandwidth infrastructure. EuNetworks owns and operates thirteen optical fiber based metropolitan networks across Europe that are connected with high capacity intercity backbone. EuNetworks offers a portfolio of metro and longhaul Ethernet and Internet Protocol services including dark fiber, dedicated fiber, wavelength, Ethernet, and Internet.

In Germany wireless frequencies were auctioned last year. Since then Vodafone could provide high speed LTE internet to more than 4 million subscribers in Germany. The success of Long term evolution lies on the bandwidth, which is delivered through the fiber optic networks. The basic infrastructure providing high bandwidth to support LTE network is fiber optic cables.

Building a strong fiber optic network is the key to the success of next generation mobile networks also. The advantage for Vodafone by cooperating with euNetworks is the fact that euNetworks owns an extensive network of fiber optic cables in the major markets where Vodafone wants to deploy LTE networks.

As we have discussed in some earlier posts, the young generation trend is towards mobile internet as it provides greater flexibility. The introduction of capsule or tablet computers are also influential factors to go for mobile broadband services. The success of wireless broadband lies on the presence of a strong backbone fiber optic network.

4G: LTE/LTE-Advanced for Mobile Broadband

Fundamentals of LTE (Prentice Hall Communications Engineering and Emerging Technologies Series)
LTE for 4G Mobile Broadband: Air Interface Technologies and Performance

LTE for UMTS: Evolution to LTE-Advanced
WCDMA for UMTS: HSPA Evolution and LTE
From GSM to LTE: An Introduction to Mobile Networks and Mobile Broadband

Use of Power meters in optical fiber loss measurements

2011-07-27T20:03:00.000+09:00

Power meters are used to test the loss of optical fiber link. OTDR - Optical time domain Reflectometer is used to test the attenuation of an optical fiber link for long distances. However, optical power meters are used in the field as it is easy to handle and do the measurement. Most OTDRs are not suitable to measure attenuation when the optical fiber link length is less. If the fiber optic link length is lesser in the range of 50 meters, power meters are of great help to estimate the loss.

A power meter setup comes with a light source and a detector. An Optical Loss Test Set, commonly called as OLTS combines the functions of power meter and source in to a single unit. A pigtail or jumper cable is used to couple the light from the light source. Another jumper cable is used to connect to the power meter.

Power meter measurements are conducted one at a time. The stable measurement conditions are necessary to achieve accuracy in the measurements. The fiber optic cable under test is connected usually by splicing to the source and power meters through jumper cables. Optical loss of a fiber optic link is measured by first measuring the loss of a test reference fiber with the source and power meter and then testing the actual fiber cable under test by connecting the ends to the jumper cables. Test reference cable shall be used as the jumper cable if possible.

Light source for multimode measurements are different from that for singlemode fiber measurements. In fact, the light sources are available at different wavelengths such as 850nm, 1300nm, 1550nm etc. Power meter, which detects and compute can be the same whatever be the light source.

Power meters are used to measure optical loss in the mechanical tests of a fiber optic cable. The fiber optic cable sample under mechanical test is connected to the light source and power meter and the initial value is set to zero. During or After the mechanical test, measurement shall be taken. The power meter will show the increase in attenuation in dB.

The disadvantage of optical power meters are the less accurate readings that are influenced by the external forces such as vibrations and movements etc. The advantage is the easy measurement. There are numerous suppliers for power meters. NOYES power meters from AFL are very popular. JDSU has OLP series optical power meters. Some of the Chinese suppliers are given below;

Newmi Digital Tech. Co. Ltd

Sunidvr Technology Co., Ltd

Guangzhou Wanglu Communication Equipment Co. Ltd

Shenzhen Anyk Technology Co., Ltd.

Guangzhou Wanglu Communication

Shenzhen Topton Optical Co., Ltd

Shenzhen Noyafa Electronic Co., Ltd

Chongqing Dodem Communication Technology Co.,Ltd

Shenzhen AnYuan Technology Co.,Ltd

Shanghai Biaodi Technology Co. Ltd

Hangzhou Sanxin Network Technology Co. Ltd

Shenzhen Sizhong Technology Co. Ltd

Tongson Communication Equipment Industrial Co. Ltd

City of Cedar Rapids starts installation of fiber optic cable networks

2011-07-27T00:08:00.000+09:00

Fiber optic network deployment in the City of Cedar Rapids in the state of Iowa in United States has started. As part of the fiber optic cable installation, underground ducts have been installed in the city of Cedar Rapids.

The fiber optic network is called the Joint Communications Network and it spans around 208 kilometers. The fiber optic network will cover several school district locations, city and county facilities and traffic signals in the metro area. To this effect the city of Cedar Rapids is working with Linn County and Cedar Rapids community school district.

Cedar rapids is the second largest city in the state of Iowa. The population of the city is approximately 126,326. The city of Cedar Rapids will take the lead in design and construction of the fiber optic network project. All the sectors of businesses and organizations will be benefited from the construciton of fiber optic network in the city.

The fiber optic network design is based on the redundancy concept, so that any fiber break during service will not affect the communication process. The network will deliver high speed communication services to educational institutions, Government offices, institutions, and residents. There will be a significant change in the service offerings once the fiber optic nework is installed.

Fiber optic network is supposed to deliver faster communication services at reduced cost which is its greatest advantage over legacy networks. This Joint Communications Network will provide redundant geographic communication connections among critical government facilities and E911 network operations all the time even during natural disasters.

As per the plans, approx. 98 kilometers of this Joint Communications Network will be completed by the fall of 2010 and the cost to this installation is estimated to be around US$ 3.3 million. The project will be executed in phases as per the schedule and is planned to connect with the fiber optic network in the city of Marion.

Use of polyethylene as outer sheathing material in fiber optic cables

2011-07-25T19:11:00.000+09:00

Polyethylene is the most commonly used sheathing material in fiber optic cables. Some of the reasons for selection of polyethylene is its high abrasion and resistance to oil and chemicals and excellent environmental characteristics. Polyethylene is easily available also. Other commonly used sheathing materials include PVC and Nylon.

Polyethylene comes in different densities such as LDPE, LLDPE, MDPE and HDPE. Low density polyethylene has low shrinkage compared to that of other polyethylene, but low density and less abrasion resistance also. Typical density will be around 0.92g/cm³, where as for MDPE this is around 0.94g/cm³ and above 0.95 g/cm³ for HDPE. High density polyethylene has higher shrinkage properties, which need to be taken care during the process. Linear shrinkage of HDPE sheathing material will exert stress on the stranded core. If the stranded core is not wrapped with proper materials, or if the loose tube thickness is lesser, there are chances of attenuation increase after sheathing process. This problem is more evident when the sheath thickness is more than 2.0mm.

Polyethylene used for outer sheathing is preferred to be black in color by adding carbon black. Carbon black, typically 2.5% added to the polyethylene is a good ultraviolet resistant material. Resistance to ultraviolet rays is one of the most important outdoor parameter a sheathing material must meet. UV stabilization methods shall be employed while compounding the polyethylene granules if carbon black is not present, for example in the case of colored polyethylene.

Some customers specifies colored outer sheath for fiber optic cables. You might have come across such specifications where the end-user requires orange or blue polyethylene outer sheath. When polyethylene is colored, carbon black can not used. When such colored outdoor cables are exposed to sunlight, the UV rays, typically in the range of 200 to 400 nm wavelengths will break the double bond present in the ethylene molecules. This breakage of double bonds will cause disintegration of the polymer and reduce the lifetime of sheath.

UV stabilized colored polyethylene for sheathing of fiber optic cables is available in the market. Polyethylene suppliers will be able provide more details about the extrusion conditions and the precautions to be taken during process. UV stabilization and Anti oxidant chemicals and methods shall be ensured from polyethylene suppliers.

If the sheathing grade polyethylene does not contain UV stabilization material, the fiber optic cable manufacturer shall clearly mention it in their cable specification so that the end-user can take effective protective measures during installation. Application of such cables shall be better limited to indoor, where there is almost no chance for the sunlight.

Some cable manufacturers mix the polyethylene granules and UV stabilization material powders before loading in to the hopper. Such mixings may not distribute the UV stabilization materials uniformly. The finished cables, when exposed to sunlight may crack here and there, where UV stabilization material is not present. The mixing shall be uniform to avoid sheath cracks.

End-user may want to identify the fiber optic cable from other cables in the field by giving colored outer sheaths. Fiber optic cable manufacturers can propose black polyethylene with alternative solutions for identification of fiber cables instead of color sheath if the cable is to be used outdoor. The alternative methods may include use of stripes over the sheath. Long life of the cable sheath is more important than identification.

Easy availability, mechanical and environmental characteristics of polyethylene makes it a preferred sheathing material for fiber optic cables.

Home Communications Inc. selects Clearfield’s FTTH products

2011-07-24T14:47:00.001+09:00

Clearfield says that the Kansas based telecom provider Home Communications, Inc. will use Clearfield’s FTTH products for their Fiber to the home project. Home Communications Inc launched Fiber to the Home (FTTH) project that is partially financed with broadband stimulus funding under the American Reinvestment and Recovery Act.

Home Communications, Inc, in Galva, a 78 year old company, started its beginning with Miles and Blanch Baldwin purchasing the New Gottland Telephone Exchange in 1933. Now HCI has grown into a technology leader for rural communications. HCI provides quality telephone service, DSL Internet and cable television to customers in Galva, Canton, Roxbury, Gypsum, Assaria, Mentor, Salemsborg, Falun and Geneseo.

Clearfield will be the best partner in HCI’s FTTH project. Clearfield, Inc. had worked with HCI on previous projects. For this project also, Clearfield will assist in managing the more than 600 miles of fiber to be deployed to all of HCI’s exchanges throughout nine cities, and ultimately serving approximately 1,800 homes.

HCI Chief Technology Officer Richard Baldwin said the FTTH deployment was critical to provide area businesses and residents with the latest telecommunication advancements, such as high speed internet and internet protocol television (IPTV) with high definition channels. Clearfield’s FieldSmart Fiber Crossover Distribution System (FxDS) panels will be used in HCI’s central office with strategically-placed Fiber Scalability Center (FSC) PON cabinets equipped with Clearfield optical component splitting technology in the field.

Baldwin cited several criteria for selecting Clearfield’s products, including ease of access, customer turn-up efficiency, cost effectiveness and overall cleanliness of deployment. “When you look at fiber panels with no fiber jumpers, initially it’s hard to determine which product is better,” he said. “After you run the fiber jumpers, it doesn’t take long to determine where manufacturing flaws exist. The fiber management design in the FieldSmart cabinet is far superior to others. Fiber jumpers stay organized and easy to manage from the first jumper to the last.”

Clearfield President and CEO Cheri Beranek said, “HCI has a 75-year history of telecommunications leadership in Kansas. They have been a great customer of Clearfield’s for years and we’re proud to be their partner in this major fiber initiative.”

Introduction to Fiber Optics, Third Edition Introduction to Fiber Optics, Third Edition Nonlinear Fiber Optics, Fourth Edition (Optics and Photonics)Control and Freedom: Power and Paranoia in the Age of Fiber Optics An Introduction to Fiber Optics

Ultra-Fast Fiber Lasers: Principles and Applications with MATLAB® Models (Optics and Photonics)

BTI Photonic Systems secures US$12 million in Series D financing.(FIBER OPTICS): An article from: Telecommunications Mergers and Acquisitions Newsletter Major upgrade underway for first citywide BPL system in US.(upgrade of broadband-over-powerline devices in Manassas): An article from: Fiber Optics Weekly Update

Emerald Atlantis selects TE SubCom to builds world’s first 100X100 Gbps submarine fiber optic system

2011-07-23T06:22:00.000+09:00

Here is the press release from TE SubCom about world’s first 100X100 Gbps submarine fiber optic cable system.

Emerald Atlantis Limited (EA) and TE SubCom, a TE Connectivity Ltd. company and an industry pioneer in undersea communications technology, today announced the finalization of an Instruction to Proceed (ITP) to build the Emerald Express Trans-Atlantic Cable System. The first phase will provide both low-latency and ultra-high bandwidth capacity between the US, Canada, UK and Iceland, requiring 5,200km of advanced submarine fibre optic cable. To achieve the desired ultra-high capacity rates, Emerald Express has been designed to support 100x100Gbs on each of its six fibre pairs.

“The Emerald Express system’s combination of a 100x100G per fibre pair design and ‘great circle’ routing for optimized trans-Atlantic low latency will enable Emerald Atlantis to meet the tremendous demand for bandwidth driven by cloud services, while providing Iceland with the required connectivity to support the anticipated explosive growth of low cost, 100% carbon free, renewable energy powered data centres, in which the Wellcome Trust, Emerald Atlantis’ largest shareholder and strategic partner, has a major investment,” said Greg Varisco, EA, President.

The trans-Atlantic marine cable route survey between UK and Canada commences in early August and the Emerald Express system will enter service in late 2012. The Emerald Express system includes a high capacity connection to Iceland, allowing Iceland based data centres to offer ultra low latency connections to Europe and North America, and provides two stubbed branching units positioned off Newfoundland and Ireland to support future connectivity.

“A fast track, game changing project of this scope requires the expertise and commitment of the most experienced technology supplier and installation partner, which is exactly what we have in TE SubCom,” said Scott Schwertfager, General Manager, EA. “We look forward to working closely with TE SubCom to ensure the Emerald Express system is completed on-time and with maximum efficiency and reliability.”

“It is a pleasure for TE SubCom to be chosen by Emerald Atlantis, who has asked for the most technically advanced solution available for a 2012 project completion,” said Michael Rieger, TE SubCom VP of Global Sales. “The industry is shifting its commitment to new trans-Atlantic bandwidth, and TE SubCom is looking forward to working with the Emerald Atlantis team in the US and Iceland to deliver this unique IT infrastructure project within budget and on time. TE SubCom will leverage our extensive North Atlantic project experience, including recent success delivering a system into Iceland.”

About Emerald Atlantis Ltd.

Emerald Atlantis (EA) recognises the imminent shortage of low latency trans-Atlantic bandwidth, and after extensive R&D and market research, the company founders, and institutional investor – Wellcome Trust, have combined in Emerald Atlantis to build a network that jumps a generation in technology and offers a unique opportunity to Fortune 1000 companies to access low latency trans-Atlantic bandwidth and low cost green energy data centre solutions in Iceland. Emerald Atlantis is registered in the Isle of Man, is privately owned, operated and funded and has offices in Houston Texas and Reykjavik Iceland.

For more information visit http://www.emeraldatlantis.com/.

About the Wellcome Trust

The Wellcome Trust is a global charitable foundation dedicated to achieving extraordinary improvements in human and animal health. It supports the brightest minds in biomedical research and the medical humanities. The Trust's breadth of support includes public engagement, education and the application of research to improve health. It is independent of both political and commercial interests.

For more information visit http://www.wellcome.ac.uk/.

Fiber optic broadband news from around the world

2011-07-21T23:46:00.000+09:00

UK’s Virgin Media has started fiber optic broadband services in Cambridge. Residential and business subscribers in Cambridge will be able to enjoy the download speeds of up to 100 Mbps through the broadband connection. Virgin Media plans to roll out more numbers of high speed broadband in UK with in one year.

In another development, UK internet service provider Hyperoptic said they will be soon launching the 1Gbps fiber optic broadband services in UK. Hyperoptic’s 1Gbps services will be based on Fiber to the premise technology. Hyperoptic targets residential and businesses who wants to have high speed broadband services. Currently Virgin Media offers 100 Mbps broadband services in UK utilizing FTTC technology.

In USA, Climax Telephone, utilizing the federal stimulus funds of about US$ 2 million, will build fiber optic networks to offer high speed broadband services to 1000 peopole in Climax, Scottes and near villages. The technology will be based on Fiber to the premise to deliver the high speed broadband services. Fiber to the premise will be coming from the central office of CTS Telecom located in Climax.

In Austria, in the town of Obertun-am-See, the telecom operator A1 Telekom has deployed FTTC technology by laying 17 kilometers of fiber optic cables. These fiber optic cables connect 1400 houses in the town. A1 Telekom is the leading telecom operator in Austria. Telekom Austria and Mobilkom Austria merged in 2010 to form A1 Telekom. A1 provides Gigaspeed 30 or Gigaspeed 16 through the FTTC technology. In FTTC technology, the optical fiber goes to the curb from the central office. Copper cables will be distributed to the houses from the curb to provide high speed broadband. In this case, the last mile is not optical fiber as in the case of FTTH.

New Zealand’s Pacific Fibre selected TE SubCom to implement the 12750 km submarine fiber optic cable system that connects New Zealand to the United States while connecting to Australia through Trans-Tasman cable. This cable can contribute significantly to the ever increasing bandwidth requirement between the countries.

Fiber optic market news from around the world shows continuous growth trend in the fiber optic broadband market. The deployment of fiber optic broadband in different parts of the world may slightly differ. Some countries use Fiber to the premise technology to deliver high speed broadband services, while some others use Fiber to the curb technology. Countries such as Japan and UAE had taken bold initiatives to deploy fiber to the last mile, connecting the homes with fiber optic cables. Fiber to the home deployment is considered to be a futureproof technology to deliver today’s and tomorrow’s high bandwidth services.

Migration from the legacy networks is evident throughout the world. Building a totally new optical network is far easier than migrating from the copper cables. In this sense, developing countries where most of the areas are not even connected with copper cables can directly go for optical fibers. Removing the existing copper networks to deploy fiber optic networks need more investment and time. Anyway, the march towards all optical networks has been progressing and for those who have not yet started, it is a matter of time. It not today, tomorrow they will join.

Fiber Optic Market news update from Hong Kong

2011-07-20T23:41:00.000+09:00

Global ranking of FTTH council for the countries having more than one percent of household penetration of FTTH/FTTB technologies shows Hong Kong at third position below South Korea and Japan. The percentage of household having fiber optic broadband (FTTH and FTTB/LAN including) in Hong Kong is 34%. Out of this, almost 4% of the houses are connected with Fiber to the home broadband.

The potential for growth in the fiber optic broadband market in Hong Kong is evident through its commitment in expanding fiber optic networks. It is estimated that the number of high rise multi dwelling units in Hong Kong will be more than 6000 in Hong Kong. Multiple approaches are required to connect single dwelling units and multi dwelling units in any country depending on the regulations of the country and also on the geographical characteristics.

Some countries may have regulations to deploy cables underground, while some others may restrict the use of aerial poles. It is best to have an existing underground duct network. In some cases, these existing ducts may also have been occupied completely by the legacy cables. Hong Kong’s multiple dwelling units can be wired with riser fiber optic cables vertically. From the riser area to the individual home, horizontally indoor cables can be laid in conduits or fixed on the wall.

To use the existing conduits effectively, fiber optic cable manufacturers have developed new FTTx cables with smaller dimensions that will easily occupy the available space inside the conduit. Such solutions will be helpful to the service providers to reduce the installation cost. A study by FTTH council reveals that more than sixty eight percent of the FTTH project cost is claimed by the civil works. The fiber optic cable portion claims less than six percent. Thus lower dimension access and premise cables will reduce the civil works cost and thereby saves the project cost substantially.

With a population of more than 7.1 million, Hong Kong has more than 4.2 million main telephone lines and more than 12 million mobile subscriptions. As we saw the percentage of households with FTTH in Hong Kong is approximately four percent, there is a huge potential for migration from the legacy broadband services to the fiber optic broadband services in Hong Kong. The fiber optic networks in Hong Kong needs to be updated to meet the growing bandwidth demand.

It is to this effect that the New World Telecom selected Alcatel-Lucent for its 100G deployment in Hong Kong. Optical networks in Hong Kong needs to be upgraded or make ready to meet the rapid increase in bandwidth so that New World Telecom can offer enterprise services to its subscribers.

Alcatel-Lucent provides 1830 Photonic Service Switch (PSS) for high capacity and performance and gives flexibility by re-allocation of bandwidth automatically to address the faults that may occur in the network. The deployment of 100G will enable New World Telecom to use a mixture of different speeds such as 10G, 40G and 100G on the same optical fiber pair.

New World Teleocm was established in 1995 and is a member of New World Development Company Limited. New world Telecom provides international voice and other innovative data services in Hong Kong and overseas. By using Alcatel—Lucent’s 100G, New World Telecom had taken a bold step to expand capabilities of their next generation networks.

Reduced fiber optic broadband costs will attract more subscribers in New Zealand

2011-07-19T21:42:00.000+09:00

To make the 100 Mbps more attractive and to remain competitive in the New Zealand broadband market, Telecom New Zealand plans to reduce the monthly charges of fiber optic broadband services in New Zealand. New Zeland had announced Ultrafast Broadband plans nationwide. Telecom could not win for the roll-out of fiber optic broadband at some areas due to the high cost. By reducing the cost of broadband, Telecom aims to penetrate to these areas as well.

Telecom New Zealand press release says that the Chorus today released service descriptions and other related documents for the key Ultra Fast Broadband (UFB) products. The industry reports say that the fiber optic broadband cost in New Zealand is slightly more than US$ 500 per month for 100 Mbps business connection. This monthly charge will be reduced to around US$ 320 to attract more subscribers.

The cost of 100 Mbps fiber optic broadband seems to be higher in New Zealand compared to the nations where fiber optic broadband deployment is reaching to its saturation. For example, a fiber optic broadband service offering 100 Mbps house hold connection costs less than US$ 60 for a residential subscriber in Japan.

The cost of fiber optic broadband must be cheaper than copper based broadband. People should not be burdened in the name of fiber optics. The advantage of fiber optics needs to be felt to the common man through competitive service offerings. If fiber optic based broadband services are costlier than traditional broadband technologies, migration from the existing network to the fiber optic network will not happen.

Common people does not need 1 Gbps or more currently as they may just use the internet connection for internet browsing and sometimes download movies. This was the negative propaganda against fiber optic broadband. If the cost of fiber optic broadband services are higher, telecom operators and service providers will not have any major attractive.

Through the UFB project, which is scheduled to be completed by the year 2020, several competitive broadband plans can be worked out. A home plan with broadband and phone service will be charged from around NZD 37.5 per month for 30 Mbps and higher cost for high speed broadband services are also planned.

In addition, Chorus is also announcing product information on other new services, which are not part of the consultation process but are still fibre based services. High Speed Network Service, HSNS price reduction opens up fibre for more businesses and competitive service offering in the market. Chorus has also announced that from 24 August 2011 it is reducing the price of its High Speed Network Service (HSNS) product, in line with the UFB Agreement with CFH.

HSNS is an existing fibre-based product that is sold to service providers to enable them to provide high speed fibre services to business and corporate customers. The HSNS price will be reduced across all 33 UFB regions, including the regions where Chorus has not been selected as the Crown’s partner.

Chorus has also announced the launch of the Chorus Co-Innovation Labs. This will support RSPs in their product development and allow them to test the new fibre products. The labs will be open in both Auckland and Wellington from today.

New Zealand’s largest telecom utility provider, Chorus build and maintain local access networks with copper and fiber optic cables that connects around 1.8 million homes and businesses in New Zealand. Chorus is the network infrastructure division of Telecom New Zealand.

Read the fiber optic broadband plans announced by Chorus; Chorus consults industry on future fibre products

ABI Research finds growth in global fiber optic broadband subscribers

2011-07-17T10:09:00.000+09:00

ABI Research’s recent study Broadband Subscribers Market Data finds continuous growth in the number of fiber broadband subscribers globally. Compared to the second quarter of last year, there is an increase of 8% in the number of fixed broadband subscribers globally this year, the market research firm’s study reveals.

The number of fixed broadband subscribers at the end of second quarter were more than 539 million worldwide. ABI Market research’s study reveals a strong growth of fixed broadband in the emerging markets.

The strong demand increase for high bandwidth services such as triple play services worldwide has pushed telecom operators and service providers to move from the legacy broadband concepts to fiber optic broadband services. The number of people using internet protocol based services are increasing.

To meet the bandwidth requirements, telecom operators and service providers have been deploying fiber optic cables in the backbone, access and premise areas to create an all optical network from the central office to the premise. All optical networks can efficiently deliver the higher bandwidth services to the subscribers.

Countries like Japan, Korea etc are the leaders in FTTH broadband. The recent deployment news from China shows a rapid increase in the fiber optic broadband subscribers. China Telecom plans to provide FTTH broadaband to 100 million subscribers in China. China Telecom aims 30 million FTTH subscribers by the end of the year 2015.

Optical fiber has clear edge over other conventional telecommunication media in transporting high bandwidth high speed transmission due to its inherent nature. Optical fibers use light to carry signals. The theoretical bandwidth of an optical fiber carrying an optical signal of wavelength 1310 nm is more than 200 THz. The theoretical bandwidth at 1550nm wavelength is also close to 200 THz. Devices and components need to be designed to achieve bandwidths near to thi theoretical bandwidths.

ABI Research estimates that worldwide fiber broadband subscriber numbers will more than double in 2016 to 142 million subscribers, from 69.6 million in 2011.

The market research report Broadband Subscribers Market Data finds that about 17 million subscribers have been added in China itself till the second half of 2010.

The emerging economies like India and China have huge potential for growth in the broadband sector and will contribute substantially to the global fiber optic broadband subscriber growth too. The economic growth in these countries has boosted deployment of fiber optic broadband recently and this trend will continue for the coming years too.

The news update from ABI Research says that the new “Broadband Subscribers Market Data” study profiles subscriber trends categorized by operator, by country, and by technology. Detailed market trends and market forecast information for key regions and countries around the globe are provided where available.

For more details visit ABI Research

Wateen to deploy fiber optic cable network in Balochistan

2011-07-16T13:15:00.000+09:00

The mountainous western region of Pakistan, the Baluchistan will be wired with optical fiber cables. Baluchistan is sometimes written as Balochistan also. Originally the Balochistan region spreads from Pakistan, South East of Iran and South of Afghanistan.

Wateen Telecom Ltd, has been awarded to deploy fiber optic cables in Balochistan. The project cost for deploying fiber optic network in Balochistan is estimatedd to be around US$ 28 miilion. This project cost corresponds to approximately 2.4 billion Pakistani Rupees. As per the project plans, 1100 kilometers of fiber optic cable network will be deployed in the northern Balochistan region under the project name USF Balochistan Package 4 (BP-4).

Wateen Telecom is basically an Abu Dhabi Group, who has invested in Pakistan’s growing teleocmmunicaiton sector. Abu Dhabi Group has been into many business segments including telecom. For this fiber optic network building in Balochistan region, Wateen will invest approximately US$ 5 miilion and the rest of the project cost, around 23 million will be provided by USF (Universal Service Fund Company) through subsidy.

The Balochistan fiber optic network deployment project plans to connect twenty unserved cities and towns, including Gulistan, Musakhel, Barshor, Duki, Harnai, Ziarat, Sinjawi, Zhob, Sherani and Qamardinkarez. The project has highest national value in Pakistan as it is one of the key investment in the Balochistan area to develop information technology, telecom, education, health and business sectors in Balochistan area.

The national importance of the new fiber optic network project was observed by the presence of Pakistan’s Prime Minister Mr. Yousuf Raza Gilani, Chief minister of Balochistan Mr. Nawab Aslam Khan Raisani, IT MoIT Secretary Mr. Saeed Ahmad Khan, PTA Chairman Dr. Yaseen Malik among the dignitaries for the opening ceremony of the project.

The deployment of fiber optic networks in its remottest areas shows Pakistan’s commitment to build intelligent future generations equipped with latest information technology to compete with the rest of the world. Wateen telecom has shown its commitment to the nation once again by taking the leading stage in the deployment of next generation networks. Wateen is working with USF on 3 similar optical fiber network projects and 4 broadband projects in Balochistan, Sindh and Punjab areas of Pakistan. These projects entail a total of 3300 kilometers.

Wateen multimedia has started its roll out of Hybrid Fiber Coaxial cable network in Lahore for offering triple play services to the residents. Wateen provide broadband services through HFC - Hybrid fiber – coaxial.

Why Polarization mode dispersion is not required for short FTTx cables?

2011-07-16T11:31:00.000+09:00

Specifications for bend insensitive optical fibers, which are used for FTTx cables mention that PMD is not necessary to measure and report for short length cables such as jumper cables, indoor cables and drop cables. Why PMD is not important for these types of cables and why it is not necessary to measure and report when PMD is one of the important optical transmission characteristics that limits the number of channels?

Characteristics of a bending-loss insensitive single mode optical fibre and cable for the access network specified by ITU-T for category A fibers issued on November 2009 has the recommended values for PMD. The table of recommended values is applicable for both A1 and A2 category fibers. PMD for B category fibers are yet to be decided. This means, if the A category fibers are used in the long haul networks, the PMD is important and if they are used in short cables of an access network, PMD is not important.

What ITU-T says about PMD? ITU recommendations have some good discussion about polarization mode dispersion coefficient for category A fibers. If it is required by the users, the Polarization mode dispersion can be specified as a statistical value. PMD for individual fibers is not required since it is not valid for an optical fiber cable network. Cable manufacturers need to provide PMD Link design value PMDQ. PMD of a 20 concatenated cables shall be calculated as per IEC/TR 61282-3. PMD link design value requirement for category A bend insensitive optical fibers is 0.2ps/sqrt.km, which is same as that for G.652D low water peak fibers.

PMDQ is not applicable to short cables such as jumper cables (patch cords, pigtails), indoor cables and drop cables irrespective of the optical fiber type used in these cables. Note that the same is applicable for G.652D low water peak fibers also. This means that PMD is not applicable for short cables made of any type of optical fiber.

The reason is that Polarization mode dispersion is important only for the fiber optic systems that have specifications for maximum differential group delay (DGD). If an optical fiber link system does not have maximum DGD specification. Also for category B bend insensitive optical fibers, PMD is not critical since these fibers are used for applications where the DGD is not specified and hence the table of recommended values does not have any PMD values specified.

Polarization mode dispersion, PMD is the delay of optical signals to reach at the far end caused due to the difference in the velocities of two orthogonally polarized lights. Higher core-cladding concentricity errors and birefringence are two inherent causes of PMD in an optical fiber. External stress contributes to higher PMD in cabled fibers.

PMD becomes a problem when the optical fiber link is longer, typically more than 50km to several hundreds of kilometers not for a 100 or 500 meters network. The reason is, in order for the two polarized lights to have some difference (delay) they need to travel several thousands of meters. Fiber optic access networks are shorter and premise networks are further shorter. Thus DGD is not a problem in Indoor and drop cables used in premise networks. Hence measurement of PMD is not necessary for short cables such as jumpers, indoor cables and drop cables irrespective of the optical fiber type used.

Swisscom and Winterthur Public Utility cooperates for fiber optic network expansion

2011-07-14T23:00:00.000+09:00

Switzerland’s Winterthur Public Utilities and the leading telecom operator Swisscom will together plan for a fiber optic network expansion that will effectively deploy high speed broadband based on fiber optic network in the future.

Winterthur is in Zurich, Northern Switzerland with a population of approximately 100,000 people. Swisscom has more than 5.9 million mobile subscribers in Switzerland.

Swisscom has been constructing the fiber optic networks in Winterthur for the past one year. The current expansion of fiber optic network planned with Winterthur utilities will be done carefully to avoid unnecessary civil works. Fiber optic network construction some times interfere with the daily life and disturb the local residents, especially the trenching and ducting underground blocks the traffic and causes great concern to the daily life.

Both Swisscom and Winterthur Public Utilities will be involved in the expansion of fiber optic network. The investment for the new fiber optic network will be shared by 60:40 ratio by Swisscom and Winterthur Public Utilities respectively.

Winterthur Public Utility is aiming at open access network for the proposed fiber optic network. Open access network is a concept where the network owner will install fiber optic cables and other components from the central office to the subscriber premise and finally makes ready the network for service offerings. Interested parties can lease the fiber optic network to offer their services to the subscribers. Several fibers will be laid to each home in this case.

The current fiber optic deployment by Swisscom and Winterthur Public Utility aims to provide four optical fibers to each home and business premises. Two of these optical fibers will be used by Swisscom and the remaining two optical fibers will be used by Winterthur Public Utility which can be given to different service providers.

We have discussed on a separate post on the issue of laying multiple number of optical fibers to each home/business premise. If you want to go through that post, please follow this link; How many optical fibers are required to each home in an FTTH network?

Open access network creates competition among the service providers, while it helps to avoid deployment of multiple cables and thereby saving investment cost. It gives multiple choice to the subscriber to choose the service provider, by keeping all the network components unchanged while changing the service provider.

Swisscom has signed similar fiber optic expansion projects with another six more companies in Switzerland. The cooperation with Winterthur Public Utility is the seventh in this series. It is estimated that approximately 47,000 houses and business establishments in Winterthur will get fiber optic connection by the year 2017. Both companies have agreed to use their existing fiber optic networks to this effect to reduce the deployment cost.

Swisscom has been involved in providing internet access to the schools in Switzerland through the ‘Internet for schools’ program. Also Swisscom had announced plans to to roll out the next-generation high-speed communications network in Zug in the coming years.

BSNL subscribers in Kerala, India will get 100 Mbps through optical fibers

2011-07-13T21:31:00.000+09:00

The subscribers in the southern state of kerala in India will start getting 100 Mbps broadband connection from BSNL, the state owned telecom operator of India. For the past many years BSNL has been deploying fiber optic cables throughout India. BSNL is currently offering a broadband speed of 2 Mbps to its subscribers through its various broadband plans.

BSNL now estimates that around 40,000 (forty thousand) subscribers will be connected to its Fibre to the Home (FTTH) network. Out of this 40,000 subscribers, 16,000 subscribers will be from Kochi, which is the commercial capital of Kerala.

Kerala, God’s own country, as the people from this small Indian state says, has the highest literacy rate, which is at par with many of the developed countries. Kerala claims to have many credits in its social developments compared to other states. On a global comparison of telephone communication between two countries, India-Saudi Arabia has the highest percentage with 16%. This means, 16% of the telephone conversations happen globally is between India and Saudi Arabia. It is estimated that Keralite are the majority expatriate community in Saudi Arabia from India. People from this state have settled in many parts of the world.

Trivandrum is the capital of Kerala and Calicut is another major city, which is located at the north of Kerala. Both Trivandrum and Calicut will also be included in BSNL’s initial plan to bring fiber to the home services in Kerala.

BSNL will use GPON technology to give fiber optic connections to the broadband subscribers. GPON is the passive optical network technology in which the GPON Optical Line terminal equipment is placed at the central office and the Optical network unit or terminal is placed at the subscriber’s premise. Optical signals will be sent through the fiber optic cables from the central office to the subscriber premise. All the way it will be passive connection, thereby eliminating the need of active equipments.

GPON technology is widely deployed all over the world. Generally speaking GPON is popular in Europe, Americas, Middle East Asia, Africa etc, while GEPON is the leading technology in the East Asian countries like Japan, Korea, China etc. Experts say both GPON and GEPON have their own advantages and it is the choice of the telecom operator to choose which technology to deploy depending on their network choice.

BSNL had already connected around 100 subscribers in Kochi. BSNL plans to provide more connections after the rain. Kerala get rain from June and it extends to the month of October. Periodic rain in other months are also usual in Kerala.

BSNL’s FTTH broadband plans offer triple play services. This means the voice, data and video will be packed in one signal that will be delivered to the subscribers optical network terminal and then gets separated to relevant outputs such as telephone, television and computer. BSNL broadband plan will offer internet, video conferencing and internet telephone.

Kochi is one of the city suggested for second round of broadband conncetion by the TRAI in its report for policy for national fiber optic broadabnd along with other approximately 65 Indian cities. BSNL introduces 510 GPON ports for Greater Kochi region. BSNL aims to give 32 connections using this GPON. The advantage of GPON is that it can go for 64 and more connections if required and allowed by the optical loss budget.

In Kochi, BSNL started getting demand request for higher bandwidth services from industrial unts and residents. BSNL’ s project for connecting the universities, colleges and polytechnics through fiber optic broadband is progressing. Sixteen universities in Kerala will be linked under this project.

Next-Generation FTTH Passive Optical Networks: Research Towards Unlimited Bandwidth Access

FIBER TO THE HOME (FTTH) ARCHITECTURE: DESIGN AND OPTIMIZATION

Broadband Optical Access Networks and Fiber-to-the-Home: Systems Technologies and Deployment Strategies
Iliad's Free plans FTTH.(fiber to the home): An article from: Fiber Optics Weekly Update
France Telecom announces more FTTH plans.(FTTX)(fiber-to-the-home ): An article from: Fiber Optics Weekly Update

TW1 undersea fiber optic cable system will be upgraded by Transworld and TE SubCom

2011-07-13T00:14:00.000+09:00

Fiber Optics Engineering (Optical Networks)

Pakistan’s first private submarine fiber optic cable operator Transworld Associates(Pvt.) Ltd and TE SubCom (SubCom) will upgrade the TW1 undersea fiber optic cable system. SubCom is a TE Connectivity company formerly known as Tyco Telecom and an industry pioneer in undersea communications technology. Transworld Associates Pvt Ltd is known in short as Transworld.

TW1 was constructed by SubCom and began operations in 2006. This submarine fiber optic cable connects Pakistan, UAE and Oman. The upgrade, scheduled for completion by the end of 2011, will deliver enhanced connectivity in the region.

By upgrading the existing fiber optic undersea network,Transworld will be in a position to maintain its extreme importance for development of reliable broad band services in Pakistan as well as in Middle East. This upgrade is indeed a significant step for Transworld, as they are demonstrating again their capabilities to meet expectations for high-quality international connectivity services for their ever demanding Pakistani and Middle Eastern customers.

The TW1 undersea fiber optic cable system spans more than 1,200 km. This fiber optic system comprise of a two fibers link with an ultimate design capacity of 1.28Tb/s. SubCom’s flexible upgrade solution will provide the option of adding six additional wavelengths, using plug and play technology. Upgrading TW1 will provide additional high-speed connectivity needed to fuel the ongoing growth of IT and telecom in Pakistan.

The bandwidth demand in Pakistan has been or rise ever since the telecom operators in Pakistan started deploying high speed broadband services. The region will experience the demand for higher bandwidth services like IPTV, Video on-demand etc. Also, the communication services with neighboring countries has also been increasing and hence the upgradation of existing infrastructures are necessary to meet future demand.

Fiber optic networks are being built in Oman as well. Oman has regionally a strategic position to bridge between Asia and Europe. Oman is home to many submarine fiber optic cables.

TE SubCom is a pioneer in undersea fiber optic cable system design and deployment. TE SubCom has laid approximately 490,000 kilometers of undersea cables. Transworld is a joint venture of Orascom Telecom, Orastar Limited and Omzest Group and was setup in the wake of the deregulation of the Pakistani Telecom sector with a mandate to operate the first privately owned submarine fiber optic cable system between Karachi - Pakistan, Muscat, Oman and Fujairah of UAE.

WDM Technologies: Active Optical Components (Optics and Photonics)

Undersea Fiber Communication Systems (Optics and Photonics)
AT&T teams to test 114G.(TECHNOLOGY): An article from: Submarine Fiber Optic Communications
Global Crossing wins U.S. government contract with Naval Research Laboratory under GSA Schedule 70.(SUBMARINE CABLES): An article from: Fiber Optics Weekly Update
EASSy awards Alcatel-Lucent contract to deploy 10,000km submarine network for Africa.(SUBMARINE CABLES): An article from: Fiber Optics Weekly Update
Fujitsu signs contract for upgrade of Japan-US Cable Network.(SUBMARINE CABLES): An article from: Fiber Optics Weekly Update
Hibernia Atlantic increases its European footprint by adding network presence in Amsterdam, Frankfurt, Brussels, and Paris.(SUBMARINE CABLES): An article from: Fiber Optics Weekly Update

Clearfield assists FTC to deploy fiber to South Carolina Houses

2011-07-11T23:29:00.000+09:00

Farmers Telephone Cooperative is planning to connect approx. 10,000 houses in South Carolina with optical fibers over the next two years. Farmers Telephone Cooperative launch this fiber to the home initiative with assistance of Clearfield. Clearfield provides the fiber management system to the Farmers Telephone Cooperative.

The fiber optic network will be around 400 miles. The press release from Clearfield says that with the fiber management assistance of Clearfield, Inc. residents along a 400 mile corridor of new fiber will be realizing the benefits of fiber based communications for phone service, digital TV, high-speed Internet, security and wireless service.

Farmers Telephone (FTC), which is the second largest telephone cooperative in the United States, will be utilizing Clearfield’s full range of FieldSmart products in the 24-month Passive Optical Network (PON) deployment. Included within the deployment plan are the FieldSmart Fiber Scalability Center (FSC) for the outside plant and the FieldSmart Fiber Crossover Distribution System (FxDS) in various port counts for the inside plant as well as associated optical component technologies.

To optimize performance and reduce energy consumption, FTC will be deploying Clearfield’s FiberDeep OSP fiber pigtails throughout the build. FTC has purchased fiber management panels from Clearfield for years. Once Clearfield’ Clearview Cassette eliminates the failure point in protecting the vulnerable back side of the panel to fiber breaks due to improper assembly or installation.

FTC has been a trusted telecommunications provider since 1951. It is the second largest cooperative in America, backed by cutting-edge technology and unparalleled customer service. For nearly 60 years, FTC has been committed to providing communication services to the businesses and residents of Clarendon, Lee, Lower Florence, Sumter and Williamsburg counties. The capability to provide phone service, digital TV, high-speed Internet, security and wireless service has shifted FTC from a traditional telephone company to a full-service communications, entertainment and security provider. FTC is a cooperative, working with its members and community to provide the latest information, most up-to-date technologies and quality customer service.

Zhone Technologies provides next generation access for FTTH triple play to QCOL

2011-07-10T00:17:00.000+09:00

The press release from Zhone Technologies, Inc. says that a western Pennsylvania based QCOL will deploy Zhone’s MXK™ as its primary Gigabit Passive Optical Network (GPON) access platform for the new fiber-to-the-home network it is building to deliver triple-play services to customers.

Zhone Technologies is a gloabal leader in FTTx access network solutions and QCOL is an internet service provider since 1998. Zhone's MXK solution will equip QCOL to deliver affordable and reliable high speed Internet access, VoIP and video services to more than 2,000 subscribers across Fayette County, Pennsylvania, Garrett County, Maryland and Preston County, West Virginia, all in the northeastern United States beginning in August 2011.

The widespread system capabilities of Zhone's MXK platform benefit both QCOL and its subscribers, including utilization of up to one gigabit (1GB) capacity in the home and the ability to support the extreme bandwidth demands generated by multiple high-definition television (HDTV) screens, high definition digital video recorder (HD-DVR) content and video streaming within the home. The system scalability and flexibility of the MXK help future-proof the network for more advanced service rollout while also reducing recurring operating expenses (OPEX) and any adverse customer impact from rollout of these next-generation services.

QCOL’s residential and business customers are demanding increasing amounts of bandwidth and then they sought a solution to address not only current but future bandwidth requirements before selecting Zhone Technologies. Zhone for the impressive density offered by 8-port GPON cards, along with the MXK's superior scale, effective network management capabilities and system flexibility to support multiples services in the same chassis.

Zhone has leveraged deep experience in managing the complexity of multi-service access to build the industry's most comprehensive portfolio of FTTx solutions. With QCOL delivering Radio Frequency (RF) video over fiber and the MXK's ability to support the same via either Passive Optical Network (PON) or point-to-point Active Ethernet, the MXK was an ideal fit for this project. QCOL is also deploying Zhone's zNID™ Optical Network Terminals (ONTs) for the end-points.

Zhone has deployed over 1,350 of its fully redundant, carrier-grade all-IP MXK platforms with more than 100 service providers globally in over 40 countries. Featuring industry-leading density, scalability and switching capacity, the MXK is the industry's first terabit access concentrator and provides non-blocking capacity of up to 3,600 100 Mbps GPON subscribers or 360 1G Active Ethernet subscribers.

Visit Zhone Technologies for more details: Zhone Technologies, Inc.

Next Generation Telecommunications Networks, Services, and Management (IEEE Press Series on Network Management)

Kindle Wireless Reading Device, Free 3G, 6" Display, White - 2nd Generation
PKI Uncovered: Certificate-Based Security Solutions for Next-Generation Networks (Networking Technology: Security)
New Extra Radio Frequency Battery Transmitter Ath Aaa 433mhz Remote Extender by Next Generation

6-Eye Tether Cord/IR Emitter

Next Generation Networks: Perspectives and Potentials
George Foreman GRP94WR The Next Grilleration G4 Nonstick Indoor Grill, Red

Next-Generation Network Services

ZTE Releases Future-proof Optical Transport Network Device for Metro Edge Layer

2011-07-09T00:50:00.000+09:00

Fiber optic giant ZTE from China had introduced a compact optical transport network device ZXMP M721 that will ensure future demand in metro optical transport networks. ZTE is the world leading supplier of various fiber optic solutions to service providers and telecom operators worldwide. Market research firm Ovum had reported that ZTE and Huawei will lead the global FTTx equipment market in the coming years.

Based on the OTN standards, there are different types of optical transport network equipments. Regenerators, OTN terminal equipments, Optical add/drop multiplexers (OADMs), Optical cross connects (OXCs) are some of the most common type of optical transport network equipments. Internet protocol applications have been on rise all over the world. The deployment of triple play services through IP format requires high bandwidth.

The trend in communication service field is towards all internet protocol. The recent trend in optical transport networks puts more challenges. ZTE says that the fixed and mobile network convergence and cluster router deployment requires the transport network to possess multi-service capability, higher bandwidth and adaptability to a MESH topology. In order to meet all those challenges ZTE released the new generation optical transport network platform in late 2010. Those products were ZXONE 8000, ZXWM920 and ZXMP M820 series.

ZTE press release says these products if integrate with WASON, PXC, L2 switching and OTN technology, will have intelligent control plane, large capacity optical/electrical layer service dispatching and reliable carrier class protection functions while meeting various transmission requirements from long distance backbone layer to the metro layer.

ITU-T recommendation G.709 specifies the requirements for Optical Transport Networks. According to ITU-T, Optical transport network is a combination of optical network elements connected by a fiber optic link. This system is able to provide transportation, multiplexing, switching, management, supervision and survivability of channels carrying the optical signals. Optical Transport Network was designed to provide support for WDM optical networks.

ZTE says that with the large-scale commercial deployment of 3G, LTE, IPTV and broadband access services and the continuous development of new concepts such as the Smart City, the Smart Grid, the Internet of Things and tri-network integration, operators' bearer networks, in most cases, require substantial development to be able to deliver these new services. ZTE launched ZXMP M721 in WDM & Next Generation Optical Networking exhibition in Monaco. The latest addition to ZTE's iOTN product family, it enables ZTE to provide global operators with complete end-to-end (E2E) OTN solutions from the metro edge layer to the metro core and backbone layers.

For more details, visit ZTE

SDH/SONET Explained in Functional Models: Modeling the Optical Transport Network

Photonic Slot Routing in Optical Transport Networks (Broadband Networks and Services)

Core and Metro Networks (Wiley Series on Communications Networking & Distributed Systems)
Advances in Transport Network Technologies: Photonic Networks, ATM, and SDH
Transport Technologies for Broadband Optical Access Networks/Volume1974: 1-8 April 1993, Berlin, Frg (Proceedings Europt Series)
Optical Networks: Third Generation Transport Systems
Sonet and T1: Architectures for Digital Transport Networks (2nd Edition)
Mesh-based Survivable Transport Networks: Options and Strategies for Optical, MPLS, SONET and ATM Networking
Survivable IP over Optical Transport Networks: Using Multi-layer survivability techniques running in different network layers to achieve certain level of QoS for IP over Optical Transport Networks

Ovum reports Chinese dominance in FTTx market

2011-07-07T21:16:00.000+09:00

China being a big country in terms of population, geography and economic growth has the highest potential for growth in communication sectors too. This is especially true for the growth of optical fiber communications in China. Chinese telecom operators and service providers have been deploying fiber optic cables to build sufficient infrastruture to meet increasing bandwidth requirement that has been driven by the deployment of FTTx networks.

China consumed almost half of the total approximately 190 million kilometers of optical fibers consumed globally. Market research firm Ovum says the Chinese dominance will continue for some more years. China has been deploying fiber optic cables on a massive scale for the past some years. The market surveys shows that FTTx subscriber growth in China is huge and will continue for the coming years.

There are more than 35 companies making fiber optic cables in China. Two comapanies manufacture submarine fiber optic cables. Approximately 17 have capabiltiy to draw optical fibers. Almost all global fiber optic leaders have their operation in China and almost all of them produce optical fiber or fiber optic cables for the domestic market. Few of them come out of China to supply fiber optic cables to neighboring countries especially. Still China imports optical fiber from other countries.

Ovum repots that China will have 100 million FTTx subscribers by the year 2016. According to the data published by FTTH Council on December 2010 to update the countries with more than 1% FTTH/FTTB penetration, China was ranked at the 21st position with 2.6% fiber broadband household penetration. At present China’s ranking is not so promising, but soon Chinese FTTx subscribers will reach to 100 million and that will be more than 50% of the world’s FTTx subscribers.

Ovum reports says that Chinese FTTx suppliers Huawei and ZTE will continue to hold their leading positions for years to come. Huawei and ZTE enjoy first and second position in terms of market share of FTTx products. The price competition posed by these giants is unbeatable and they will continue enjoying their status both in the domestic market and outside China as well.

Though Japan and South Korea are the leaders in Fiber optic broadband deployments and developing FTTx products, the growth in these countries has come to a stagnant rate. Japanese and Korean FTTx vendors find it difficult to compete with Chinese FTTx vendors.

Principal analyst of Ovum, Julie Kunstler reports that China is the biggest consumer of FTTx equipments currently and that is going to continue. Greenfield deployments have also increased in China due to the continuing economic growth.

Ovum says that Huawei and ZTE are the biggest exporters outside China and in the fourth quarter of 2010, 50 percent of the total FTTx equipment revenue in EMEA corresponds to shipments by Huawei and ZTE.

Northern Mexico gets fiber optic broadband through broadband stimulus program

2011-07-06T17:42:00.000+09:00

Kit Carson Electric Co-operative, KCEC is preparing to deploy optical fiber cables to the households in Northern Mexico. The fiber optic broadband project will be funded by broadband stimulus program. KCEC received USD 63.8 million in grants and loans to deploy high speed broadband technology in Northern Mexico.

In order to deploy fiber optic broadband KCEC has announced several partnerships. Faster and effective FTTH roll out requires cooperation from all quarters. KCEC is in partnership with WESCO, Atlantic engineering, TCS communications and Pulse broadband for its planned fiber to the home (FTTH) rollout in Northern New Mexico.

KCEC is a private nonprofit organization owned by its consumer members. It is incorporated under New Mexico state law and owned by its members. Pulse Broadband will manage the fiber optic deployments and also do the engineering works. WESCO will handle the material management and procurement. Logistics is an important part of successful fiber optic deployment. TCS Communication and Atlantic Engineering will be responsible for construction and deployment services and pending negotiations.

KCEC's service area covers more than 29,000 homes and businesses in Taos, Colfax, and Rio Arriba counties in New Mexico. One of the reasons for the Governments support and fund fiber optic broadband deployment is that it generates new jobs in the region. Apart from that, the most important advantage is that the subscribers get connected with high speed internet broadband that opens up new online and remote, home based business opportunities that stretch to all the continents. The physical boundary limitations disappear in the online world and the subscribers with high speed broadband enjoy superior transmission services from IPTV to Video on-demand.

The advantage of fiber optic roll out in the region is the boost of local economy by creating new business opportunities and jobs. The fiber optic broadband stimulus programs if implemented, will help build future next generation networks. KCEC's fiber deployment projects are supposed to create 200 to 300 new jobs.

With a population of almost 114 millions, Mexico has around 19.5 million fixed telephone connections and more than four times mobiles phones. The fixed line penetration is a promising factor for fiber to the home deployment that shows subscribers attitude towards fixed line connections. The young generation tends to opt mobile broadband to enjoy the mobility while connected. This has been a trend in many of the developed countries, where the young population likes to enjoy the broadband services even when they travel. Such trends have negative impact on intake of fiber to the home broadband.

The popularity of tablet computers will pose another threat to the fixed line broadband connections. Some of the mobile broadband service providers offer free miniature laptops along with the mobile broadband connection. To compete with mobile broadband, fixed line broadband should offer attractive pricing and quality products and services.

VIVACOM invests in fiber optic broadband in Bulgaria

2011-07-04T23:38:00.001+09:00

Vivacom, the Bulgarian telecom operator will invest BGN 600 million in the coming three years to construct fiber optic cable network to deliver quality high speed services to its subscribers. As per the plan, Bulgarian telecom operator will connect 90,000 houses by the end of the year with high speed internet services through fiber optic cables. A total of 1 million subscribers is planned to get connected to Vivacom’s fiber optic broadband by the year 2014.

Vivacom call it FiberNet. The speed of the FiberNet will be 100 Mbps. Fiber to the building, FTTB techonology will be used to achieve this high speed broadband connectivity. Fiber to the building means the optical fiber will reach to the basement of the apartment, where it will get terminated.

Compared to the FTTH, where fiber reaches at the subscriber’s home and get terminated at the wall mounted outlet or in many cases directly to the Optical network terminal, FTTB uses copper at the last mile. Services with higher speed can be delivered to subscribers compared to that of FTTC. VIVACOM offers 1 Gbps for the required subscribers. In such cases the bandwidth will not be shared with others users. Subscribers in Bulgaria can choose from different speeds from 20 Mbps to 100 Mbps for monthly charges of 20 to 50 BGN.

VIVACOM has more than 350,000 ADSL subscribers and has a market share of 27%. FTTH Council update on the list of countries with more than 1% fiber optic broadband penetration shows Bulgaria at the 16th position with 5.7% household penetration. 5.5% of the households have fiber optic broadband connection through FTTB technology. Only less than 0.2% households are connected with FTTH broadband.

VIVACOM’s decision to invest more in fiber optic networks to deliver high speed broadband to its subscribers will give a new dimension to the competion in Bulgarian market. Main competitor is M-Tel, who is the first and the biggest mobile operator in Bulgaria. M-Tel is part of Telecom Austria Group.

VIVACOM has domination in the fixed line telephone services in Bulgaria with approximately 2.9 million subscribers. This is almost 97% of the total fixed line market in Bulgaria. VIVACOM will lay 3000 kilometers of fiber optic cables in Sofia city itself to build the proposed fiber optic network. The fiber optic network will expand to other parts of the country slowly to deliver high speed internet over optical fiber cables.

Originally a state owned company, BTC, sold 65% of its shares to viva venture holding in the year 2004. In the year 2007, AIG capital partners Inc acquired 90 percent in BTC from viva venture holding. In September 2009 BTC and vivatel merged to become VIVACOM.

VIVACOM’s investment in fiber optic broadband is the right decision at the right moment as it started loosing many of its fixed line subscribers to the mobile. The attraction of fixed line telephones can be greatly enhanced by offering fiber optic broadband services. Fiber optic broadband through wired technology is superior than mobile broadband technology. There are unconfirmed reports that a Lebanese firm will acquire some of the shares of VIVACOM.

Fiber optic broadband deployment news from United Kingdom

2011-06-30T22:40:00.001+09:00

O2, which is the trade name of Telefonica Europe plc., revealed their plans to launch commercial trial of fiber optic broadband before the end of the year.

Telefónica UK Limited has 22.3 million mobile customers and more than 700,000 fixed broadband customers in UK. Telefonica UK limited is part of Telefonica S.A’s European business that uses O2 as its commercial brand name in the United Kingdom, Ireland, Slovakia, Germany and Czech. O2 is often written as O2.Telefónica UK Limited is part of Telefónica Europe plc which is a business division of Telefónica S.A. and which uses O2 as its commercial brand in the UK, Ireland, Slovakia, Germany and the Czech Republic, and has 56.9 million customers across these markets.

O2’s network provides voice and high speed data services to more than 84 percentage of the UK population. The transmission speeds are upto 14 Mbps, which will be upgraded to 21 Mbps within few months. O2 had deployed 4G/LTE trial network with maximum speeds of 100 Mbps to a mobile device.

We have been hearing many fiber optic broadband news recently from UK. British Telecom, BT had announced fiber optic broadband based on FTTC technology in many areas in UK. Recently the UK Government gave subsidy to Fujitsu to build nationwide fiber optic network to provide FTTH services.

Unlike many European countries, UK could not find its place in the chart published by the FTTH council to rank the economies that have more than one percent households connected with FTTH, FTTB or Fiber optic LAN technology. Lithuania, Norway, Sweden, Latvia, Slovenia, Denmark, France, Slovakia, Portugal, Netherlands, Estonia, Turkey, Russia, Bulgaria and Finland got their ranking in the list of countries with more than 1% fiber optic broadband penetration.

The policies followed by UK has not been favorable for faster deployment or migration to fiber optic broadband. While many of the European economies could really move faster towards FTTH, it seems, UK is still not convinced with full-scale FTTH.

O2 is currently considering its infrastructure and place for the trial for fiber optic broadband. The pricing and package details will be announced later. O2 will give priority to its existing customers when the deploy fiber optic broadband. A registration program for the fiber optic broadband will be launched before the launch date.

O2's entry into the fiber optic broadband market will give a new dimension to the competition. BT and Virgin Media are currently offering high speed broadband connections in the UK. Virgin Media is offering 100 Mbps to around 4 million houses in UK. Fujitsu’s fiber optic deployments projects are yet to be started. Fujitsu’s fiber optic network building will bring new era of fiber optic services in the UK as it will be an open access network through which any service provider can offer their services to the subscribers.

China Telecom and Huawei deploys 100G near Yangtze River in Jiangsu Province

2011-06-28T20:16:00.000+09:00

China Telecom has announced that they have deployed 100G WDM transmission system first time in the metropolitan hubs of Nanjing and Wuxi in the Jiangsu Province. China Telecom deployed Huawei's 100G transmission system in the province of Jiangsu near Yangtze River.

100G optical transmission systems are a reality now. It has come out of the research papers to the actual deployment fields. Optical fiber manufacturers and optical component makers need to narrow down their specifications to meet the performance demanded by high bit rate optical transmission. It was just last week this blog discussed a recent decision of KPN of Netherlands to deploy 100G coherent transmission systems from Huawei to connect Amsterdam and London.

100G and beyond will be required long haul and backbone transmission requirement to meet the growing bandwidth demand at the subscribers premises. Demand for higher bandwidth services like video on demand, storage and download of movies, triple play services etc are pushing telecom operators and service providers to deploy high bit rate transmission systems. Huawei says that the successful deployment of this 100G system with China Telecom has launched China into the ultra-broadband era.

China has also been experiencing a rapid increase in bandwidth due to the growth in mobile telephone services and FTTH deployments throughout the nation. China consumed half of the total around 200 million kilometers of optical fibers consumed globally last year. Chinese optical fiber and cable manufacturers have been experiencing the shortage of supply due to the sudden increase in consumption of optical fiber cables by telecom operators.

Huawei press says that in Jiangsu, Huawei's end-to-end 100G solution enables bandwidth pool solutions to be seamlessly integrated and hybrid 100G and 40G services to be transmitted from Nanjing to Wuxi over hundreds of kilometers without having to use an electrical regenerator. Huawei's 80-channel system with 40 Gb/s per channel solution and Tbit-level OptiX OSN 8800 are adopted in this OTN network. The successful transmission of 100G services indicates a 2.5-time increase in capacity of the live network to 100 Gb/s per channel (80 channels), which lays a solid foundation for the rapid development of backbone telecommunication services in Jiangsu.

In high speed optical transmission systems, polarization mode dispersion and Optical signal to noise ratio are two critical parameters. To overcome the problems posed by PMD and OSNR in 80G or 100G transmission networks shall be designed with proper amplifiers. Dual polarization or polarization multiplexed quadrature phase shift keying format with a digital coherent receiver will improve optical signal to noise ration tolerance. This will compensate impairments due to polarization mode and chromatic dispersions.

Huawei is a world leader in providing telecom operators worldwide with high quality WDM/OTN, MSTP/Hybrid MSTP, and microwave products as well as end-to-end solutions.

Trend of FTTH broadband technologies in North America

2011-06-26T13:50:00.000+09:00

North American FTTH service penetration rate has reached to 18%, a recently released market research analysis by RVA LLC Market Research & Consulting reports. FTTH projects are growing in United Sates and Canada mainly in North American countries.

The global ranking of major FTTH economies by FTTH council on last year December showed the United States with approximately 7.5% household penetration rate. This ranking was based on FTTH and FTTB/fiber LAN technologies connected to the homes.

Compared to many other major economies, the growth of FTTH in the United States is slow. The so called Government subsidies could not help much to push the deployment of fiber optic cables to homes. In fact they act in a negative way to the fiber deployment. The reason is many of the projects have been delayed in hoping to get the fund from Government, which otherwise would have gone for their own funding source.

Japan’s Ministry of internal affairs and communications had updated the FTTH penetration in Japan as 19.8million approximately. In fact it is slightly behind the target of 20 million subscribers by the end of 2010. The reasons for massive deployment of FTTH in Japan are the initiatives taken by the Government and NTT’s decision to implement the broadband policies.

The attractive points of FTTH are well known and the market of FTTH will be the market of the future. Keeping these in mind, many service providers have been investing to build next generation networks without the concern of immediate return of investment. Such kind of investments have been the driving force for the FTTH in many parts of the world. Immediate revenue may be difficult in the case of FTTH as the migration from legacy broadband technologies might take more time.

Migration from existing broadband technologies is a time taking process and need more investment, but subscribers are guaranteed in such cases. Building new FTTH networks will be more easier than migration from the technical point of view, but the return of revenue is not guaranteed at least for the time being. Telecom operators and service providers has to find a trade-off between the two to advance in providing FTTH on a massive scale.

The Government policies and the initiatives taken by NTT in Japan could push the FTTH intake to almost more than 60% of the total broadband. Around 2009, the percentage of FTTH penetrated houses overtook the percentage of DSL and other broadband technologies. In Japan too, the wireless broadband possess a big competition to FTTH broadband. Since the wireless broadband offers mobility and flexibility new generation subscribers in the cities tempt to choose wireless broadband. In order to compete with other technologies, the monthly charge of fiber optic broadband connections have dropped drastically. It is now cheaper than the ADSL.

The study in Northern American countries reveals that more than 500,000 houses get FTTH services of at least 50Mbps. Out of this approximately 170,000 houses have access to 100Mbps FTTH service. Telecom operators and service providers are able to offer high definition TV and faster Internet through FTTH technology. Customer satisfaction is much more in FTTH broadband than with any other broadband technologies.

Fiber Optic Mania had discussed in a previous post that Bell Aliant of Canada plans to connect 600,000 houses with FTTH broadband services by the end of 2012 in Canada.

Subscribers may be willing to pay more for the advantages of fiber optic broadband compared to copper and wireless broadband services. Service providers have to be well in time to reap from the growing market demand. The right decision at the right time is required. Policy makers may be slow in deciding to move on a massive scale towards FTTH deployments, but service providers, telecom operators, system integrators and similar interested parties should make a movement to speed up that decision making process.

North American countries, especially United States is not well positioned in the ranking of FTTH penetrated countries compared to the progress the country made in all other fields. There is a saying that the world look in to United States to decide where to move and how to move. Unfortunately, at least in the FTTH deployments United States is not in the board of mentors where the rest of the world look positively for guidance. Hope the coming years will see more active fiber optic broadband deployments from North American countries. The trend has been reported by Ovum in their latest report of future of optical networks and finds positive growth in North America due to deployments of high speed fiber optic networks.

Investing in FTTH is an investment for building future generations. The advantages and benefits will be more visible in the generations to come. And Fiber Optic Mania thinks that is the reason why we call fiber optic networks as next generation networks.

KPN deploys Huawei’s coherent 100G optical transmission systems

2011-06-24T02:09:00.000+09:00

In yesterday’s post we discussed about Ovum's market research report that Optical network market will continue to grow till 2016 with an annual compound growth rate of 6%. One of the reasons for the growth in countries like USA will be the deployment of 100G transmission systems. Huawei in a press release announced that Huawei along with KPN, Netherlands' leading telecom operator have deployed coherent 100G services on fiber optic networks that uses wavelength division multiplexing.

KPN's fiber optic network connects London and Amsterdam, which are among of the largest bandwidth demanding cities. KPN's fiber optic cables provide high speed optical communication link between these cities. There has been an increasing demand for higher bandwidth and high speed transmission requirement in these region of Europe. With the deployment of 100G optical transmission systems in their fiber optic network, KPN can meet the challenges posed by the rise in bandwidth hungry services in the region.

Huawei, a leading telecommunication solutions provider to telecom operators worldwide made a long term collaborative effort with KPN in the coherent 100G transport field, Huawei press release says. This collaboration helps KPN to prepare for future fiber optic network services in the region.

If we see the growth of transmission speed in the past decades, there has been a sharp shoot up of bandwidth and speed happened in the telecommunication field. From 10 Mbps transmission to 100 Gbps transmission and more, telecommunication solution providers has been experimenting to meet the future challenges that will come up from the growth of broadband services. Huawei’s coherent 100G transmission technology provides ultra large dispersion tolerance and polarization mode dispersion tolerance.

Chromatic dispersion and polarization mode dispersion becomes significant problems in optical transmission when the speed increases. Dispersion compensation techniques shall be employed for efficient high bit rate transmission. Polarization mode dispersion shall be less as the channels spacings come closer to achieve high bit rate optical transmission through optical fibers. Optical fibers with suitable characteristics have been developed by optical fiber manufacturers to meet lower polarization mode dispersion values.

Huawei’s coherent 100G technology is the latest technology for transmitting high-speed 100G services, providing ultra-large dispersion tolerance and polarization mode dispersion tolerance. With this technology, 100G services become more adapted to fiber transmission. Services can be transmitted at a higher rate over a longer distance. At an astonishing transmission rate of 8 terabits per second, it takes only one second to download 240 DVD movies, each of which is two hours long, Huawei says.

Huawei's solution for KPN International enables hybrid transmission of 100G services and the existing 10G/40G services on the network, smoothly upgrading the network while not affecting ongoing services. The solution also creates a tenfold increase in the service rate of a single wavelength, which helps KPN International effectively resolve the large-bandwidth challenges and maximize return on investment. With support for G.652 and G.655 fibers, the Huawei coherent 100G solution provides 100G service transmissions over a distance of 613km without having to use an electrical regeneration site, demonstrating excellent performance on the KPN International WDM network.

Huawei provides WDM/OTN, MSTP/Hybrid MSTP, and microwave products as well as end-to-end transport solutions to telecom operators worldwide. According to Ovum, Huawei has led the global optical network market, WDM/OTN market, as well as the 40G market as of the fourth quarter of 2010.

As more and more telecom operators started deploying the high speed transmission systems, solution providers have come up with necessary equipments and electronics. Accelink, a Chinese supplier provides 100GHz DWDM modules, which uses thin film optical filter technology and encapsulated safely for environmental stability. It has high isolation and low insertion loss. This Chinese supplier also offers mini optical switch and EDFA-LA optical amplifier. 100GHz DWDM module from Accelink is a multiplexer/demultiplexer module used to forward and separate optical signals with different wavelengths into an optical fiber designed to be used in longhaul and metro access networks.

OVUM forecasts optical network market revenue of USD20 billion in 2016

2011-06-23T01:07:00.000+09:00

Ovum finds a continuous growth in the optical network sector for the coming years. In a recent study Ovum reports that the North American market will grow by 12% in 2011, while there will be a contract in Asia-Pacific region. The study finds that Europe, Middle East Asia and Africa markets will return to the growth path.

Ovum is part of the Informa Group. Ovum provides clients with independent and objective analysis that enables them to make better business and technology decisions. Ovum does an extensive research before reaching to conclusions. Their research draws upon over 400,000 interviews in a year with business and technology, telecoms and sourcing decision-makers.

The global optical networking market will reach revenues of $20 billion by 2016, Ovum says. This is an encouraging news for everyone working in fiber optic communication industry and related business sectors. Ovum study finds that the optical network business sector is capable of pulling itself out of the economic downturn. A compound annual growth rate of 6% is predicted for optical network sector till 2016, but all sectors may not see the same pace of growth.

The reasons for continuous growth in the optical network sector are demand for high speed broadband, expansion of mobile networks and enterprises. The drivers for growth will keep on increasing in the coming years. Telecom carriers have been investing in optical networks to build access networks in order to meet the higher bandwidth demands of the future years. Telecom operators have already started implementing high bit rate transmission networks such as 40G and 100G.

The interesting thing in Ovum’s report is coming back of North American market for fiber optics. The roll out of high speed fiber optic broadband technologies in North American countries will be the reason for this growth. Asia-Pacific was the leader in optical network roll out for many years in the past. Hopefully, the Europe, the Middle East, and Africa will come out by improving from contraction to modest growth. Ovum predicts solid growth for North America in 2011 of 12 per cent, up from 7 per cent in 2010. Ovum says the emerging technologies such as 100G will be the driving force in North America.

In EMEA, which contracted by 10 per cent in 2010, Ovum predicts that 2011 will be a turnaround year, with three per cent growth and a CAGR of 5.5 per cent from 2010 to 2016. Ovum adds that the developing economies in EMEA still need basic infrastructure and the developed ones are due for a network refresh after two long years of recession-induced restraint.

Ovum’s figures show that the market in Asia-Pacific contracted by 2.2 per cent last year and will contract by a further 3.2 per cent in 2011, although the reasons differ. Ovum finds that 2010 reduction was due to a dry market in Japan and a government-induced freeze in India, while the Chinese market grew. Ovum predicts growth again from Japan and India but a slowdown in China in 2011, caused by an overheated market that needs a little cooling-down period.

Visit Ovum for more details: Ovum

What are the Connector types available for Fiber optic network?

2011-06-22T06:42:00.002+09:00

The field of connectors is very complicated for a new comer to fiber optic technology, no doubt. There are different types of connectors suitable for different applications. The designs and materials used in them change slightly from manufacturer to manufacturer. This post is to give an overview of commonly used connector types and to make the understanding in simple language. We think, before jumping into the connector options for Fiber to the home networks, it will be worth to recall the connectors available for outside plant fiber optic network and datacenter network.
Four basic most commonly used types of connectors are FC, SC, LC and ST types. Generally these are expressed as FC/PC, SC/PC, LC/PC and ST/PC respectively. The common abbreviation PC in all four types stands for Physical Contact.
FC stands for Fixed Connection. FC Type connectors were developed in Japan. This kind of fiber optic connectors has threads to tighten and fix and take out. Care shall be taken not to fix the FC connectors too tight and loose fit as well. NTT developed these kind of connectors in Japan. FC connectors have slightly curved end face. The curved end face will allow the fibers in the mating connectors to come in contact. FC connectors are good choices if you need low back reflection. FC connectors are good for both multimode and singlemode fibers. FC type connectors are used in equipments generally. If you work in a fiber optic cable plant, you might have noticed that OTDR use a small piece of pigtail spliced to a dummy fiber. This pigtail is connected with a FC connector. Measuring equipments in an optical fiber and cable manufacturing plant uses fixed connectors mostly. Fixed connection type connectors results in low back reflection generally around -40dB.
SC of SC connector stands for Subscription channel. SC connectors also have their origin in Japan. SC connectors are push-pull type connectors. These types of connectors also have slightly curved end face to mate the fibers closely. SC connectors are cheap compared to other types. SC connectors have low loss and low back reflection typically around -40dB. SC type connectors have high packing density and are suitable for compact type adaptor interfaces. SC connector has square shape.
Straight tip connectors or ST connectors were developed by AT&T. OFS was part of this group. ST type connector works on Twist on-Twist off bayonet mechanism.Another type is LC type, which is small form factor (SFF) connector developed by Lucent Tech and well justified the name Lucent connector or LC connector. LC connectors comes with a retaining tab mechanism with a similar structure of SC connectors used together for a duplex cable.
US Conec developed a special fiber optic connector MTP, basically an improved version of MPO connector developed by NTT in Japan. MPO stands for Multi-fiber push-On. Ribbon type fiber optic cables are widely used in Japan. MTP connectors are used in break-out cables, cross-connect and also for backbone applications.
FDDI connectors are used in Fiber Distributed Data Interface or FDDI which refers to a local area network standard such as Ethernet or Token Ring. Another name of FDDI connector is Media Interface Connector or MIC connector.
MTRJ connector was developed by corning, AMP and Tyco. This is also a small form factor connector. The expansion of MTRJ is Mechanical Transfer-Registered Jack. MTRJ connectors hold two fibers and is a duplex connector.
The above is only a portion of fiber optic connectors available in the market. Fiber optic connector manufacturing has come to a status of small scale industry recently.

Samsung fiber optics and RiT partner to market infrastructure management solutions

2011-06-21T00:21:00.000+09:00

South Korean optical fiber and cable maker Samsung and RiT Technologies have entered into a strategic partnership. Samsung fiber optics will market and distribute RiT Technologies’ intelligent infrastructure management solution.

RiT is in strategic partnership with ADC Krone, Belden CDT, Brand-Rex, Connectix cabling systems, SIMON Electric, who are global leaders among structured cabling and network components manufacturers. Having their headquarters in Tel Aviv, Israel, RiT has offices in United States, representative offices in Russia, Italy, UK, China, India and distribution offices in Austria, Germany and Switzerland.

RiT provides intelligent solutions for infrastructure and asset management and network utilization. RiT's advanced solutions provide solutions to organizations and carriers to centrally manage infrastructure assets and networked components for effective planning, implementation and operational control, improved reliability and quick return of investment.

Samsung Fiber Optics has deployed a cutting-edge PatchView™ IIM system of RiT in one of South Korea’s largest convention and exhibition centers. This highly visible installation demonstrates the growing traction of the managed infrastructure concept throughout South Korea. Managed infrastructure systems are becoming ubiquitous in residential, enterprise and commercial settings in South Korean market.

South Korea is ranked first in terms of percentage of household penetration of FTTB/FTTH technologies. More than 55% of the houses in South Korea have access to fiber optic broadband. Japan ranks second in the list published by FTTH council in December. Samsung Fiber Optics began as a optical fiber/fiber optic cable business division of Samsung Electronics, and spun off from the parent company in 2004 as a fiber optics specialist. Today, Samsung Fiber Optics offers a broad line of fiber optic cable products, and also components for mobile phones and touch panels.As a global leader of fiber optics industry, Samsung Fiber Optics supplies its products to more than 60 countries around the world, and holds a share of approximately 30% of the broadband network market in Korea.

RiT Enterprise solutions address datacenters, communication rooms and workspace environments, ensuring maximum utilization, reliability, decreased downtime, physical security, automated deployment, asset tracking, and troubleshooting. RiT Carrier solutions provide carriers with the full array of network mapping, testing and bandwidth qualification capabilities needed for access network installation and service provisioning. RiT's field-tested solutions are delivering value in thousands of installations for top-tier enterprises and operators throughout the world.

RiT Enterprise solutions address datacenters, communication rooms and workspace environments, ensuring maximum utilization, reliability, enhanced uptime, physical security, automated deployment, asset tracking, and troubleshooting.

RiT Carrier solutions provide carriers with the full array of network mapping, testing and bandwidth qualification capabilities needed for access network installation and service provisioning. They are ideal for NGN access network migration, digital services qualification, and access network maintenance. The new relationship has already contributed its first significant deal.

Figure-8 self supporting cables for aerial feeder, distribution and access fiber optic networks

2011-06-20T00:46:00.000+09:00

Aerial installation is the economical method of installing a fiber optic cable. Costly digging and civil constructions can be avoided in the case of aerial installation. Thus in order to save on the CAPEX telecom operators tends to deploy the cables aerially as much as possible.

It is true that aerial installation saves from many civil works. While that is true, there are mechanical stress issues to be considered for aerial installation. Self supporting type aerial cables are widely used for aerial fiber optic networks to address the mechanical stress issues. The messenger wire or supporting wire gives the cable enough strength to protect it from stresses that occur while installed on aerial poles. The cable has almost the shape of 8 and hence it is often termed as figure-8 cable.

Figure-8 aerial cables are self supporting in the sense that the cable part attached with the messenger wire through a web relies on the mechanical properties of the messenger wire. To install on the poles, the cable portion and messenger wire portion has to be detached. Messenger wire is generally made of galvanized steel wires. When some specific installation conditions requires non-metallic elements for the whole cable, FRP can be used in the place of steel wires. In such cases, the mechanical properties like tensile strength etc will be reduced.

Tensile strength to the cable part can be given by providing FRP as the central strength member in a typical loose tube design, or by embedding the FRPs in the case of central tube design. Another way of providing required tensile strength to the cable part is by using glass or aramid yarns over the central tube. The excess length in a central tube shall be properly maintained as the installation conditions of a self supporting cable is much sever than duct or direct buried type cables.

Proper sag shall be maintained according to the regulations in each country. The required tensile strength depends on the installation sag also. Therefore care shall be taken while installing the self supporting cables to maintain proper installation sag. Allowable service sag will be provided by the cable manufacturer. Cable manufacturer’s data sheet will provide details of calculated tension at different temperatures and wind load. For cold places, ice loading also has to be considered while installing self supporting type fiber optic cables.

Self supporting type aerial cables are ideal for feeder and distribution fiber optic networks. The cables are easily accessible. Mid-span branching for local distribution is possible for aerial self supporting cables. One of the recent trend is to attach the closure with the messenger wire so that mid-span access can be done at any desired location. Self supporting type aerial fiber optic cables get popularity in access network despite the fact that they damage the good view of the landscape.

Ekinops provide cost effective optical transport equipments to service providers

2011-06-19T07:37:00.001+09:00

Ekinops headquartered in Lannion, France designs and supplies next generation optical transport systems. Ekinops brand 360 Dynamic Multi-Reach transport equipment is able to provide DWDM and CWDM on a single platform that will be cost effective to service providers, telecom operators and enterprise customers to deploy the metro, regional and long haul optical networks.

Ekinops and Rotal Networks, who is the partner of Ekinops, provided 360 optical transport and DWDM platform, to Bezeq, Israel telecom operator. Bezeq has been on a multi-year mission to upgrade its network and deploy an advanced next generation network to support new high-speed broadband services and advanced IP telephony services to its residential and business customers.

Bezeq’s new optical network optimizes existing optical infrastructure by consolidating data traffic from multiple fiber optic cables onto a single cable using Dense Wavelength Division Multiplexing technology allowing reclaim and reuse of optical fiber cables, the press release from Ekinops says. The network carries 10G Ethernet, 2.5G SDH, and Gigabit Ethernet services and can deliver speeds of up to 400 Gb/s per fiber cable, lowering operating costs and conserving fiber.

The architecture of the network is based on the Ekinops 360 platform, the company's line of multiprotocol muxponders, and Ekinops' industry-leading DynaFEC Forward Error Correction technology. This enables Bezeq to achieve greater distance with no regeneration. The Ekinops offers features such as dynamic multiplexing functionality that allows multiplexing of any mix of protocols over a single wavelength and over any protocol on that wavelength; the industry’s best forward error correction, enabling longer reach using software; and a low-cost, long-reach 40G technology.

Ekinops also provides 10G/40G/100G transponders and distance extension solutions for long-haul fiber and Ethernet over SONET/SDH solutions, which enable service providers to transparently interconnect multiple LANs over a SONET, SDH, Fibre Channel, or Ethernet network as they migrate to an all-IP network.

Demand for high quality video has been increased all over the world and service providers need to transmit high quality video over very long distances. In such cases the cost of the fiber optic infrastructure will be a major concern for an economical solution. Broadcasters are in the process of upgrading the communication networks to send more channels in High Definition format. Transmission of SDI and HD-SDI is possible with the compression these signals, but the quality is good when they are uncompressed. Ekinops optical transport equipments provides solution that eliminates the need for compressing video signals before transport and provides the necessary flexibility for transmitting over short and long distances for local, metro, regional and wide area distribution.

Ekinop’s carrier-grade solutions leverage expertise in 10G, 40G, and 100G transmission, aggregation and Forward Error Correction (FEC) to allow operators to cost-effectively increase data transport capacity over dark fiber, CWDM, DWDM, SONET/SDH, IP/Ethernet and SAN networks.

The DBSi, a data center provider headquartered in Bethlehem, PA also uses DWDM equipment from Ekinops to provide numerous data-carrying channels over the fiber linking its existing data centers in Bethlehem and Valley Forge to the newest facility in Breinigsville, Pennsylvania.

Deployment of the 10 gigabit per second Ethernet DWDM equipment via the Ekinops 360 platform is the first phase of a two-phase network upgrade for DBSi. Later this year, the company will use Ekinops DWDM equipment to join the three data centers in a ring configuration network that will deliver the highest levels of network redundancy, reliability, and availability.

With the expansion of high bandwidth services such as high definition video, video conferencing, distance learning, e-medical consultancy, content management businesses, effective transportation and maintenance of optical signals will be the key to the successful building and service offering by service providers and telecom operators. Ekinop’s optical transport solutions provide an cost effective methods to the service providers.

Communic-Asia exhibition to boost fiber optic networks in the Asia region

2011-06-18T06:18:00.000+09:00

CommunicAsia exhibtion will be held at Singapore from 21st to 24TH June of this year. This will be one of the biggest events for those in the communication industry. The participants will be from Internet, computers and telecommunications fields. This is the 22nd International commnunications and informational technology exhibition and conference.

Participants from different fields such as carrier services, cloud computing, enterprise mobility and applications, Satellite communications, ICT, Smartphones, Telepresence, Web entertainment, Next generation networks and services, Wireless technologies and Wimax will be present in the Communic-Asia exhibition and conference. Visitors from fiber optic cable manufacturing companies, marketing professionals, telecom and network operators, Content providers, E-business solution providers, IT consultants, ISPs and value added service providers are expected to make their presence during Communic-Asia next week.

The event is particularly interesting to fiber optic professionals from East Asian countries as it gives an oppportunity meet potential customers from all over the world. The exhibition will be held at Marina Bay Sands, 10 Bayfront Ave, 018956, Singapore.

Fiber to the home deployments by major national telecoms in Asian countries especially East Asian countries are progressing with the full support from Goverments. South East Asian countries also follow the same suit to deploy fiber to the home. ASEAN countries are heavily investing in optical fiber network building. This provides highest broadband speeds to the customers in these countries.

We could read from Prysmian that they will exhibit their Fiber to the home products in the Communic-Asia next week. Prysmian is an active player in the region though the company basically belongs to Europe. Japanese manufacturers and suppliers of fiber optic products have been active in South East Asian countries with the help of technology consultancy of NTT. Prysmian have manufacturing facilities in Indonesia for fiber opti cables a regional headquarters in Singapore.

Prysmian has bagged supply contracts from major telecom networks from Singapore, Indonesia, Vietnam and Philippines etc. Prysmian says they will show their branded riser fiber optic cable solution VertiCasa system in Communic-Asia. Prysmian’s VertiCasa allows an optical fibre network to be rapidly and cost effectively deployed within a high rise multi dwelling unit allowing all occupants to have a dedicated fibre connection to the network.

Another of Prysmian's new innovations present at CommunicAsia is VerTV™ which provides a fibre link in conventional satellite TV systems - eliminating the copper coax 'bottleneck' - demonstrating that with the ever growing consumer demand for greater bandwidth, Prysmian continues to be highly committed to bringing innovative Broadband solutions to homes throughout Asia.

Prysmian and Draka is on the process of merging together their operations all over the world. The union of two giants fiber optic technology will place Prysmian high in terms of share of the fiber optic market.The new group will be able to offer integrated cable solutions focused on high-end telecom, from optical cables tailored for all today’s challenging environments, to FTTx systems based upon existing technologies and specially developed proprietary optical fibres, to solutions for radio, TV and film, central office switching and datacom. Those who are planning to visit Communic-Asia can meet senior level offiicials from Prysmian and Draka teams.

Communic-Asia exhibition will give a boost to the already progressing FTTx deployments in developing countries in the region. This will give system integrators and service providers up to date information about next generation networks that are being built by FTTH leaders such as Japan and South Korea.

Ericsson buys Telcordia for USD 1.15 billion

2011-06-17T00:10:00.000+09:00

Ericsson will take over Telcordia for US$ 1.15 billin. Telcordia is leader in the development of mobile, broadband and enterprise communications software and services. Telcordia is headquartered in Piscataway, New Jersey. Report says they could generat revenue of USD739 million for the last fiscal year ended Jan 2011. Telcordia employs more than 2,600 people.

Why the acquisition of Telcordia by Ericsson becomes interesting to us? Telcordia, formerly Bellcore, standards are popular in fiber optic field. Telcordia has standards and test requirements for many fiber optic cable and accessories reliability tests that many of the IEC and EIA/TIA does not specify. Telcordia’s definitions on fiber optic terminologies ease out the work of those involved in fiber optic to reach to a common agreement with out further guessing and arguments.

Though IEC and EIA/TIA specifications are popular among fiber optic professionals, Bellcore standards like GR-20 are often referred and recommended in the industry. One of such standards is GR-20 standards. Compatibility test for optical fiber cables is not specified by many standardization bodies, but Bellcore has specified this test, which is widely used. GR-20 documents set the technical requirements and characteristics of both singlemode and multimode fibers, Optical fiber ribbons and optical fiber cables used in the OSP.

Issue 3 of GR-20 was prepared with the help of professionals working in optical fiber and cable manufacturing industry. GR-20 test methods are intended to provide methodology to reflect the operational conditions for optical fibers, optical fiber ribbons and optical fiber cable analysis. These standards give sampling criteria and test method for third party laboratories that can be used to test optical fibers, ribbons and optical fiber cables. One of the purpose of these standards is to give consistent and repeatable test results when tested according to the guidelines given in the GR-20 standards.

GR-20 provides new material and revisions necessitated by the increasing use of new fiber types, ribbon types and sizes, and additional cable categories within the communications industry. These test standards include optical fiber cable designs like self supporting type aerial cables, recently developed microduct fiber optic cables and air-blown fiber units.

GR-771, which is Generic Requirements for Fiber Optic Splice Closures sets forth the Telcordia view of proposed generic technical requirements and characteristics required of fiber optic splice closures. Joint closures are used in different environments in an optical fiber cable network. GR-771 provides criteria for analyzing fiber optic splice closures used in a variety of outside plant environments and applications. This GR includes the installation areas such as building entrance facilities etc. GR-771 includes proposed functional design criteria, generic mechanical and environmental requirements, desired features, and the performance tests for comparing fiber optic splice closures with the stated requirements. It is intended to permit splice closures designed for specific applications to be available at lower cost than "universal" closures.

Another popular standard from Telcordia is the Issue 4 of GR-326-CORE which is the Generic Requirements for Singlemode Optical Connectors and Jumper Assemblies. In the last post we discussed about the field assembly connectors that are used in the fiber to the home deployments. GR-326 specifies the technical generic requirements for, and characteristics required of, connectors used for joining singlemode optical fibers, and for the jumper assemblies made using such connectors. GR-326 is regarded as the most complete and rigorous standard for singlemode fiber-optic connectors. Issue 4 defines the latest requirements required of connectors used for joining singlemode optical fibers and for jumper assemblies made using such connectors. This standard discusses the endface geometry of singlemode connectors, and it specifies the criteria for singlemode connector reflectance.

The press release appeared in the Telcordia website says that Ericsson, the new owner, has a proven track record in building, integrating and managing networks. Telcordia's portfolio of proven and scalable software that make those networks more efficient, extends Ericsson's leadership and footprint in mobile OSS and positions it as a leading vendor for operational knowledge, including network, software, services, processes and efficiency in the growing OSS/BSS market. The press release adds that the transaction is subject to customary regulatory approvals and is expected to be accretive to Ericsson earnings per share within 12 months after closing.

Telcordia research finds Rim Semiconductor's DSL technology delivers 200Mbps.(MARKET INTELLIGENCE): An article from: XDSL News

Custom Cable receives its first Telcordia GR-326 certification for fiber-optic connector.(NEW PRODUCTS): An article from: FTTX
Telcordia Network Engineers Sonaecom's National FTTH Rollout in Portugal (Competitive Intelligence Report)
MOVAZ COMPLETES TELCORDIA OSMINE SERVICES PROCESS FOR RBOC.: An article from: RBOC Update

Telcordia hosts FSAN's 7th GPON interop event.(EVENTS): An article from: Fiber Optics and Communications
Telcordia Technologies Professional Background Report
Telemar uses Telcordia.(Tele Norte Leste Participacoes S.A., Telcordia Technologies Inc.): An article from: Latin America Telecom

Why Field assembly connectors get popularity in FTTH deployment?

2011-06-16T07:46:00.000+09:00

Leviton 49883-SFC FC Thread-Lock Fiber Optic Connector - Singlemode

Field installable connectors are widely used in the FTTH deployments and are getting their dominance over splicing and pre-connectorized solutions in almost all markets. Field installable mechanical connectors also offer low loss and required back reflection. Though most of the Field installable or assembly connectors specify a loss of 0.5dB, typical connector loss will be less than 0.1dB. This loss value is very much closer to the maximum loss when two fibers are fusion spliced. In fact, fusion splicing loss has come down to less than 0.05dB. Since Fiber to the home network loss budget can accommodate connector loss of 0.5dB, field assembly connectors are the best option.

Field assembly connectors are cheaper compared to the factory assembled connectors. Field assembly typically requires around 5 minutes. A skilled fiber optic technician can accomplish the work in less time. The process does not need splicing machine and therefore electrical power connections are not required. Since this process eliminates the use of fusion splicing machines, capital investment can be brought down. Field assembly connectors also eliminate need of highly skilled splicing technicians. Since this process does not need electrical power, field assembly connectors are suitable for Greenfield fiber deployments.

Field assembly connectors do not need many consumables to make a connection. Also, by doing two or three times, a fresh trainee can also perform the connector assembling process. This avoids the dependency on skilled manpower.

While fusion splicing is an option for last mile of a FTTH network, field assembly method offers greater advantages that make the FTTH deployment cheaper and thereby deployment cost per subscriber reduces drastically.

Field installable connectors are mostly SC type connectors that use push and pull mechanism. The assembling process is very simple. The connector kit generally in a box comes with the accessories required for the assembly process. Flat type drop cables are widely used in FTTH deployment all over the world. Field assembly connectors are also developed to suit to the structure of flat type drop cables. Connector kit has a cable clamping device in which the drop cable fits tightly. This holds the drop cable from becoming loose during its life time.

The assembling kit will have an optical fiber cleaver. Depending on the requirement, the cleaver can either be flat cleaver or angled cleaver. For triple play services, angled cleaver is preferred. We will discuss about this in detail later. After cleaving the optical fiber, it is inserted into the factory fitted connector case, which comes with a shutter mechanism to close and hold the fiber in place. The end face of a field assembly connector is already polished at the factory. There will be a small optical fiber polished and installed at the factory. The back end of the fiber, which is inside is housed in the connector body with index matching gel will mate with the optical fiber coming from the drop cable.

The theory of field assembly connectors is very simple. The operation is almost effortless and the price is attractively cheaper. Field assembly connectors eliminates the use of fusion splicing machine and therefore associated cost and power consumption. In every sense, Field assembly connectors make the best choice for a successful cost effective FTTH network.

Corning UniCam - Fiber optic connector - ST multi-mode (M) - fiber optic - 62.5 / 125 micron

StarTech.com 62.5/125 St Fiber Optic Connector
Monster THXI100-FO4NF THX Certified Toslink Fiber Optic Audio Cable (4 feet)
Siemon's new XLR8 fiber-optic connector and tool kit cuts field termination time in half.(NEW PRODUCTS): An article from: Fiber Optics Weekly Update
Paladin Tools 2043 CrimpALL 1300/8000 Series Die For SMA FC Fiber Optic Connectors

Optical Digital Audio Cable 6Ft.
MTP/MPO Fiber Optic IBC In Bulkhead Cleaner
Xbox 360 Monster GameLink Component Video & Fiber Optic Audio A/V Kit
6' DIGITAL AUDIO OPTICAL FIBER OPTIC TOSLINK CABLE

Fiber Optic Installer's Field Manual