Services & Solutions

Fiber Characterization & Remediation

Optimizing Your Fiber Inventory

Are you effectively managing your fiber inventory - ensuring that you are using the right fiber for a given service? If not, you could be wasting untapped capacity by using your premium fibers on less-demanding applications. Avoiding this mistake is possible only by fully characterizing the fiber and rating it against the requirements of the desired application.

Whether you plan to buy, sell, trade or lease, fiber is an asset that is best exploited when you know its transmission potential. Only then can you select a fiber that sufficiently supports an application and its foreseeable upgrades without needlessly wasting unused capacity. Not every service needs the best fiber. But, by characterizing your fiber inventory, you can identify and preserve your premium fibers for those services that are most dependent on demanding optical characteristics.

Can Your Fiber Support the Service?

Fiber development and fabrication have advanced steadily over the years. But, while improvements in fiber have kept pace with the introduction of WDM and the relentless advance of higher bit rates, there is no guarantee that the fiber you plan to use will be able to support your application. Neither can you be assured that the fiber doesn't needlessly exceed the service requirements. The situation is further complicated by the fact that individual fibers of the same type , but of different vintages, each posses unique optical properties. The only way you can be certain that a fiber appropriately fits the application is to comprehensively characterize the fiber.

When Was Your Fiber Installed?

What We Measure

AVC offers a full fiber characterization suite and conducts any and all of the following measurements:

• Attenuation - Attenuation represents the loss in strength of an optical signal as it travels along an optical fiber. If the loss is too great, transmission is degraded, if it is possible at all. Measuring a fiber's attenuation is essential to span engineering as it contributes directly to amplifier placement as well as gain settings.
• Reflection - Optical reflection refers to the amount of the optical signal that is reflected back to the source. These reflections result from various factors including connectors, splices, and unavoidable fiber imperfections. High reflection levels can contribute directly to optical attenuation, cause multipath interference and destabilize transmission lasers, thereby causing signal fluctuations.
• Chromatic Dispersion (CD)/Dispersion Slope - CD describes the broadening effect that the optical fiber has on the optical signal or pulse. If unchecked, CD can sufficiently broaden a signal such that the far-end receiver can no longer reliably distinguish a 1 from a 0; bit errors are the result.
  
  The broadening effect increases directly with the transmission distance and even more so with the bit rate. The effect of CD on a 1 0G signal is 16 times greater than on a 2.5G signal. For this reason, characterizing a fiber's CD is vital, particularly for higher speed transmission. Quantifying dispersion slope is necessary for successful WDM deployments.
• Polarization Mode Dispersion (PMD) - Like CD, PMD also refers to signal broadening; however, it's stochastic in nature and stems from minute eccentricities in the shape of the fiber core and from environmental effects such as vibration and stress. Again, the effects of PMD increase with the transmission distance as well as the speed and can be significant for 1 0G and higher speed traffic, as well as for ultra long-haul applications.
• C and L Band Profiling - Because various transmission impairments (e.g., attenuation, CD) vary in significance with respect to signal wavelength, we offer complete profiling for the C and L transmission bands - an essential service for prospective WDM deployments.

Partnering with You

When characterizing fiber, we recognize that the testing regimens must match the intended application. For example, the required tests may differ for 2.5G and 10G transmission rates as well as for a DWDM application.

This is why it is essential that the program goals are thoroughly understood. To this end, we assign a program manager to every characterization project. Our program managers ensure the testing program supports the goals of the desired application and they serve as your single point of contact, providing unfettered access to in-progress testing results and program status.

Independent Results that Matter

AVC is an independent services company that provides verifiable and repeatable characterization results to equipment vendors, carriers, and fiber owners. All testing is conducted using advanced testing equipment by fully qualified technicians. Our internal processes assure that the equipment is calibrated and properly maintained. By using AVC's fiber characterization services, you are assured of independent results that will enable you to optimize the utilization of your embedded fiber plant.

Fiber Troubleshooting and Remediation Services

The best program planning relies not merely on program execution, but how the project team accomplishes the program goals when unforeseen events occur. Severe fiber anomalies and other material impediments such as damaged connectors or faulty splices are detected regularly in fiber characterization work.

At AVC, our certified technicians have broad experience diagnosing severe optical impairments and are equipped to rectify them. Whether a connector requires replacing or a bad splice needs to be identified, located and corrected, our technicians have the expertise and equipment to remedy the problem and keep your characterization program on track.

Download Information Sheet Fiber Characterization & Remediation, PDF