Cabling Chronicles

It’s Not You. It’s Your Tester

When it comes to testing your multimode optical fiber installation, inconsistent results can leave you confused and wondering if you are within your loss budget. And with today’s higher speed fiber links that require even tighter loss budgets, accuracy is more critical than ever.

But it doesn’t have to be this way. The launch condition of the light source you’re using to test has the greatest influence on your loss measurements. In other words, the wrong launch condition means the wrong measurements.

What you need is a properly controlled launch that is consistent and accurate—neither overfilled nor underfilled. Overfilled may leave you thinking you’ve gone over budget, while underfilled may leave you thinking you have room for more loss when—in fact—you do not.

July 21, 2015

The End of Era: Saying Goodbye to DTX

The year was 2004. The hottest mobile device was the Motorola Razr flip phone, Pierce Brosnan was still able to pull off a James Bond role, Facebook was a website nobody’s parents knew about, and The Red Sox won the World Series. It was also the same year that Fluke Networks introduced the DTX CableAnalyzer.

June 24, 2015

Standards Update: Copper on the Move

In the 2009/2010 timeframe, copper standards got a lot of attention with the publication of the TIA-568-C standards and ISO 11801 2nd edition for 10-gigabit copper cabling, as well as IEEE 802.3at for PoE Plus.

While more applications and devices continue to take advantage of that technology, there has been plenty of standards development action taking place behind the scenes that is keeping copper on the move.

May 21, 2015

Standards Update: The Four A’s of Harmonization

 

With ANSI/TIA being a North American standards body and ISO/IEC considered international, some often question why we need both, especially considering the similarities between the two.

But there are also plenty of differences—from terminology and spelling, to policy and codes. The good news is that with technology having made our world a much smaller place, TIA and IEC are fast at work harmonizing standards.

May 5, 2015

New DSX-5000 Endorsements: Eurolan & Furukawa Industrial S.A.

We’re very excited to announce that two more manufacturers have endorsed the DSX-5000 this month! Eurolan has over 1,000 certified installers and engineers, and is a major supplier in Russia and the CIS countries. Furukawa Industrial S.A, is a major supplier with Centre of Excellence for Latin America in the manufacture of optical and metallic cables and has over 37 years of history in Brazil . This brings the total of number of manufacturers worldwide who have provided their endorsement to: a whopping 26!

April 19, 2015

Slash Fiber Job Completion Time with New Fiber Testing and Certification Tools

The datacom industry is fast adapting an “all-for-fiber, fiber-for-all” mantra. Fiber developments and growth are everywhere, from high-speed data centers to bandwidth-hungry enterprises to Google Fiber. 

November 10, 2014

No More “Dang It!” moments – Analyze and Manage Copper or Fiber Test Results Anytime, Anywhere

At Fluke Networks, we take test and measurement seriously. Proving that point, we recently announced the world’s first cloud-connected cable certification tool. That’s right, we unveiled LinkWare™ Live, a cloud-based service that enables contractors, cable installers and project managers using the Versiv™ family of certification testers to upload, manage, and analyze certification test results from cabling projects – anytime, anywhere.

October 29, 2014

Introducing the Versiv Family Yearbook: Class of 2014

For most structured cabling professionals, the days of nostalgically flipping through the pages of a school yearbook have passed. But Fluke Networks has introduced the next best thing – The Versiv Family Yearbook: Class of 2014.

May 23, 2014

Trends to Watch in 10GBASE-T and the Data Center

Network engineers need to pay attention to some emerging trends in the industry. In a report published earlier this year, “Data Center Switch Long-Range Forecast Report,’ Crehan Research Inc. predicted that the data center switch market will grow to $16 billion by 2017, and Ethernet, including Fibre Channel-over-Ethernet, will become an ever-increasing portion of the overall market.

April 11, 2014

Fluke Networks Offers New Wireless Bundle

Cabling installers and contractors who provide wireless network deployments for businesses, government organizations and other customers can expect to see a rapidly growing market over the next several years.
 
Enterprises are moving away from traditional wired networks and replacing them with Wi-Fi networks, as more users are demanding access to the Web and corporate data and applications from their wireless devices.

November 18, 2013