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  • Straight-through, Crossover, and Rollover Wiring

    When talking about cable pinouts we often get questions as to the difference in Straight-through, Crossover, and Rollover wiring of cables and the intended use for each type of cable. These terms are referring to the way the cables are wired (which pin on one end is connected to which pin on the other end). Below we will try shed some light on this commonly confused subject.

     

    Straight-Through Wired Cables

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  • Introduction to Small Form-factor Pluggable (SFP) Transceiver Modules

    Introduction to Small Form-factor Pluggable (SFP) Transceiver Modules

    What Is SFP?
    SFP, short for small form-factor pluggable is a compact, hot-pluggable transceiver used for both telecommunication and data communications applications. SFP transceiver can be regarded as the upgrade version of GBIC module. Unlike GBIC with SC fiber optic interface, SFP is with LC interface and the main body size of SFP is only about half of GBIC so that it can save more space. SFP interfaces a network device mother board (for a router, switch, media converter or similar devices) to a fiber optic or copper networking cable. Meanwhile, SFP is a popular industry format supported by many network component vendors. It is designed to support SONET, Gigabit Ethernet, Fibre Channel, and other communications standards.

    Standardization
    The SFP transceiver is not standardized by any official standards body, but rather is specified by a Multi-source Agreement (MSA) among competing manufacturers. The SFP was designed after the GBIC interface, and allows greater port density (number of transceivers per cm along the edge of a mother board) than the GBIC, which is why SFP is also known as mini-GBIC. The related Small Form Factor transceiver is similar in size to the SFP, but is soldered to the host board as a through-hole device, rather than plugged into an edge-card socket.

    However, as a practical matter, some networking equipment manufacturers engage in vendor lock-in practices whereby they deliberately break compatibility with "generic" SFPs by adding a check in the device's firmware that will enable only the vendor's own modules. For example, in 2003 during a routine Internet Operating System (IOS) update on their Catalyst line of switches, Cisco added a feature that would cause the switch to reject optical modules that were not deemed "Cisco brand".

    Types of SFP Transceiver Modules
    SFP Transceivers are available with a variety of transmitter and receiver types, allowing users to select the appropriate transceiver for each link to provide the required optical reach over the available optical fiber type (e.g. multi-mode fiber or single-mode fiber).

    In the market, SFP transceiver modules are commonly available in several different categories:

    For multi-mode fiber, with black or beige extraction lever
    SX - 850 nm, for a maximum of 550 m at 1.25 Gbit/s (Gigabit Ethernet) or 150m at 4.25 Gbit/s (Fibre Channel)

    For single-mode fiber, with blue extraction lever
    LX - 1310 nm, for distances up to 10 km
    EX - 1310 nm,for distances up to 40 km
    ZX - 1550 nm, for distances up to 80 km
    BX - 1490 nm 1310nm, for distances up to 10 km
    1550 nm 40 km (XD), 80 km (ZX), 120 km (EX or EZX)

    For copper twisted pair cabling
    1000BASE-T - these modules incorporate significant interface circuitry and can only be used for Gigabit Ethernet, as that is the interface they implement. They are not compatible with (or rather: do not have equivalents for) Fibre channel or SONET.

    For WDM (Wavelength Division Multiplex) system
    BiDi SFP (Bidirectional SFP) for bi-directional traffic on a single fiber. Coupled with CWDM (Coarse Wavelength Division Multiplexing), these double the traffic density of fiber links
    CWDM and DWDM (Dense Wavelength Division Multiplexing) transceivers at various wavelengths achieving various maximum distances

     Applications of SFP Transceiver Module
    SFP is expected to perform at data speed of up to five gigabits per second (5Gbps), and possibly higher. Because SFP module can be easily interchanged, so electro-optical or fiber optic networks can be upgraded and maintained more conveniently than that with traditional soldered-in modules. Owing to its low cost, low profile and the ability to provide a connection to different types of optical fibers, SFP transceiver can result in a substantial cost savings, both in maintenance and in upgrading efforts. SFP transceiver is available with multi-mode single-mode fiber optics, allowing users to select the appropriate transceiver for each link in order to provide the required optical reach over the available optical fiber type. It is also available with copper cable interfaces, which allows a host device designed primarily for optical fiber communications to communicate over unshielded twisted pair networking cables. Modern optical SFP transceiver supports DDM (Digital Diagnostics Monitoring) functions, also known as DOM (Digital Optical Monitoring). This feature gives users the ability to monitor the real-time parameters of SFP transceiver, such as optical output power, optical input power, temperature, laser-bias current and transceiver supply voltage.

    Click on Link to buy Compufox SFP Transceivers

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  • Feds get huge response to request for IoT input

    By Sean Kinney   www.industrialiot5G.com

     

     

    More than 100 companies suggest ways U.S. government can help advance the IoT

    Many industry watchers feel the U.S. is slipping behind other countries, particularly Germany and China, in creating a unified national strategy for development of the Internet of Things or IoT. But federal leaders, in the early stages of involvement, reached out to the telecom industry for guidance.

    Back in April the National Telecommunications and Information Administration, a part of the U.S. Department of Commerce, issued a “request for comments on the benefits, challenges and potential roles for the government in fostering the advancement of the Internet of Things.”

    Two months later and the call for comment has been met in spades with more than 130 filings coming from a broad swath of telecom interests including carriers like AT&T, T-Mobile, Verizon and Vodafone; vendors including Nokia, Ericsson, Huawei and Samsung; and industry trade groups like the Wi-Fi Alliance, Wireless Infrastructure Association, the Open Connectivity Foundation and the GSMA.

    Here’s a full list of the respondents and their filings with NTIA. A review of some of the filings indicates a strong industry expectation that the rapid uptake of IoT will require global coordination and will likely create new markets while disrupting existing ones.

    Verizon representatives told NTIA: “To support this explosion of IoT devices, a robust and secure underlying communications network must serve as a foundation. That network requires both increased commercial spectrum and development of the underlying core infrastructure. We encourage all stakeholders to work together to ensure that these necessary building blocks for IoT development are available and accessible. To enable sufficient spectrum to power this new wave of connected innovation, private and public sectors must continue to cooperate, not only to develop more ways to effectively share spectrum, but also to provide federal users incentives to free up spectrum for commercial licensed and unlicensed use. As potentially billions of new IoT devices are deployed, they will drive data growth that – combined with the parallel growth in overall data usage by consumer devices – will require new commercial spectrum allocations to accommodate the unprecedented demands for more bandwidth. This includes spectrum necessary to support 5G, since 5G’s super-fast speeds and low latency will help facilitate new IoT use cases.”

    Ericsson commented: “In Ericsson’s view, 5G is the technology that will unleash the true potential of the Internet of Things. To support the IoT’s development, the government should unleash the resources that will ensure U.S. leadership in 5G by releasing more spectrum for commercial use. Through network slicing, 5G technology will allow a single infrastructure to meet the very different needs of Massive and Critical IoT devices – it will enable networks to handle the incredible increase in data from the billions of low energy, low data devices, while also providing very high reliability, availability and security for critical uses. We also encourage the government to support global standards and best practices and to allow industry to continue to innovate and coalesce around the most favorable IoT solutions.”

    And from the GSMA’s point of view: “The United States should forbear from regulating IoT and avoid reflexively extending legacy regulations designed for outdated technologies to the IoT…The U.S. government should support and promote industry alignment around interoperable, industry-led specifications and standards across the global IoT ecosystem…The U.S. government should promote the allocation of globally harmonized spectrum that can support IoT…The U.S. government should encourage industry to build trust into IoT devices. Existing laws and regulations, operating in tandem with self-regulatory regimes and best practices, will provide sufficient protection to consumers as the IoT develops…Finally, the U.S. government should engage on a bilateral and multilateral basis, as appropriate, to ensure that international IoT activities similarly encourage competition, investment, and innovation. Regulatory interference at this stage—from any source—could lead to fragmentation and impede innovation, inhibiting the IoT’s ability to reach its full potential to deliver benefits to consumers.”

     

     

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  • Polarization-Maintaining Fiber Tutorial

    Introduction to Polarization

    As light passes through a point in space, the direction and amplitude of the vibrating electric field traces out a path in time. A polarized lightwave signal is represented by electric and magnetic field vectors that lie at right angles to one another in a transverse plane (a plane perpendicular to the direction of travel). Polarization is defined in terms of the pattern traced out in the transverse plane by the electric field vector as a function of time.

    Polarization can be classified as linear, elliptical or circular, in them the linear polarization is the simplest. Whichever polarization can be a problem in the fiber optic transmission.

    FiberStore Polarization Coordinate System

    More and more telecommunication and fiber optic measuring systems refer to devices that analyse the interference of two optical waves. The information given by the interferences cannot be used unless the combined amplitude is stable in time, which means, that the waves are in the same state of polarization. In those cases it is necessary to use fibers that transmit a stable state of polarization. And polarization-maintaining fiber was developed to this problem. (The polarization-maintaining fiber will be called PM fiber for short in the following contents.)

     

    What Is PM Fiber?

    The polarization of light propagating in the fiber gradually changes in an uncontrolled (and wavelength-dependent) way, which also depends on any bending of the fiber and on its temperature. Specialised fibers are required to achieve optical performances, which are affected by the polarization of the light travelling through the fiber. Many systems such as fiber interferometers and sensors, fiber laser and electro-optic modulators, also suffer from Polarization-Dependent Loss (PDL) that can affect system performance. This problem can be fixed by using a specialty fiber so called PM Fiber.

     

    Principle of PM Fiber

    Provided that the polarization of light launched into the fiber is aligned with one of the birefringent axes, this polarization state will be preserved even if the fiber is bent. The physical principle behind this can be understood in terms of coherent mode coupling. The propagation constants of the two polarization modes are different due to the strong birefringence, so that the relative phase of such copropagating modes rapidly drifts away. Therefore, any disturbance along the fiber can effectively couple both modes only if it has a significant spatial Fourier component with a wavenumber which matches the difference of the propagation constants of the two polarization modes. If this difference is large enough, the usual disturbances in the fiber are too slowly varying to do effective mode coupling. Therefore, the principle of PM fiber is to make the difference large enough.

    In the most common optical fiber telecommunications applications, PM fiber is used to guide light in a linearly polarised state from one place to another. To achieve this result, several conditions must be met. Input light must be highly polarised to avoid launching both slow and fast axis modes, a condition in which the output polarization state is unpredictable.

    The electric field of the input light must be accurately aligned with a principal axis (the slow axis by industry convention) of the fiber for the same reason. If the PM fiber path cable consists of segments of fiber joined by fiber optic connectors or splices, rotational alignment of the mating fibers is critical. In addition, connectors must have been installed on the PM fibers in such a way that internal stresses do not cause the electric field to be projected onto the unintended axis of the fiber.

     

    Types of PM Fibers

    Circular PM Fibers

    It is possible to introduce circular-birefringence in a fiber so that the two orthogonally polarized modes of the fiber—the so called Circular PM fiber—are clockwise and counter-clockwise circularly polarized. The most common way to achieve circular-birefringence in a round (axially symmetrical) fiber is to twist it to produce a difference between the propagation constants of the clockwise and counterclockwise circularly polarized fundamental modes. Thus, these two circular polarization modes are decoupled. Also, it is possible to conceive externally applied stress whose direction varies azimuthally along the fiber length causing circular-birefringence in the fiber. If a fiber is twisted, a torsional stress is introduced and leads to optical-activity in proportion to the twist.

    Circular-birefringence can also be obtained by making the core of a fiber follows a helical path inside the cladding. This makes the propagating light, constrained to move along a helical path, experience an optical rotation. The birefringence achieved is only due to geometrical effects. Such fibers can operate as a single mode, and suffer high losses at high order modes.

    Circular PM fiber with Helical-core finds applications in sensing electric current through Faraday effect. The fibers have been fabricated from composite rod and tube preforms, where the helix is formed by spinning the preform during the fiber drawing process.

     

    Linear PM Fibers

    There are manily two types of linear PM fibers which are single-polarization type and birefringent fiber type. The single-polarization type is characterized by a large transmission loss difference between the two polarizations of the fundamental mode. And the birefringent fiber type is such that the propagation constants between the two polarizations of the fundamental mode are significantly different. Linear polarization may be maintained using various fiber designs which are reviewed next.

    Linear PM Fibers With Side Pits and Side Tunnels

    Side-pit fibers incorporate two pits of refractive index less than the cladding index, on each side of the central core. This type of fiber has a W-type index profile along the x-axis and a step-index profile along the y-axis. A side-tunnel fiber is a special case of side-pit structure. In these linear PM fibers, a geometrical anisotropy is introduced in the core to obtain a birefringent fibers.

     

    Linear PM Fibers With Stress Applied Parts

    An effective method of introducing high birefringence in optical fibers is through introducing an asymmetric stress with two-fold geometrical symmetry in the core of the fiber. The stress changes the refractive index of the core due to photoelastic effect, seen by the modes polarized along the principal axes of the fiber, and results in birefringence. The required stress is obtained by introducing two identical and isolated Stress Applied Parts (SAPs), positioned in the cladding region on opposite sides of the core. Therefore, no spurious mode is propagated through the SAPs, as long as the refractive index of the SAPs is less than or equal to that of the cladding.

    The most common shapes used for the SAPs are: bow-tie shape and circular shape. These fibers are respectively referred to as Bow-tie Fiber and PANDA Fiber. The cross sections of these two types of fibers are shown in the figure below. The modal birefringence introduced by these fibers represents both geometrical and stress-induced birefringences. In the case of a circular-core fiber, the geometrical birefringence is negligibly small. It has been shown that placing the SAPs close to the core improves the birefringence of these fibers, but they must be placed sufficiently close to the core so that the fiber loss is not increased especially that SAPs are doped with materials other than silica. The PANDA fiber has been improved further to achieve high modal birefringence, very low-loss and low cross-talk.

    PANDA Fiber and Bow-tie Fiber

    PANDA Fiber (left) and Bow-tie Fiber (right). The built-in stress elements made from a different type of glass are shown with a darker gray tone.

    Tips: At present the most popular PM fiber in the industry is the circular PANDA fiber. One advantage of PANDA fiber over most other PM fibers is that the fiber core size and numerical aperture is compatible with regular single mode fiber. This ensures minimum losses in devices using both types of fibers.

     

    Linear PM Fibers With Elliptical Structures

    The first proposal on practical low-loss single-polarization fiber was experimentally studied for three fiber structures: elliptical core, elliptical clad, and elliptical jacket fibers. Early research on elliptical-core fibers dealt with the computation of the polarization birefringence. In the first stage, propagation characteristics of rectangular dielectric waveguides were used to estimate birefringence of elliptical-core fibers. In the first experiment with PM fiber, a fiber having a dumbbell-shaped core was fabricated. The beat length can be reduced by increasing the core-cladding refractive index difference. However, the index difference cannot be increased too much due to practical limitations. Increasing the index difference increases the transmission loss, and splicing would become difficult because the core radius must be reduced. Typical values of birefringence for the elliptical core fiber are higher than elliptical clad fiber. However, losses were higher in the elliptical core than losses in the elliptical clad fibers.

     

    Linear PM Fibers With Refractive Index Modulation

    One way to increase the bandwidth of single-polarization fiber, which separates the cutoff wavelength of the two orthogonal fundamental modes, is by selecting a refractive-index profile which allows only one polarization state to be in cutoff. High birefringence was achieved by introducing an azimuthal modulation of the refractive index of the inner cladding in a three-layer elliptical fiber. A perturbation approach was employed to analyze the three-layer elliptical fiber, assuming a rectangular-core waveguide as the reference structure. Examination of birefringence in three-layer elliptical fibers demonstrated that a proper azimuthal modulation of the inner cladding index can increase the birefringence and extend the wavelength range for single-polarization operation.

    A refractive index profile is called Butterfly profile. It is an asymmetric W profile, consisting of a uniform core, surrounded by a cladding in which the profile has a maximum value of ncl and varies both radially and azimuthally, with maximum depression along the x-axis. This profile has two attributes to realize a single-mode single-polarization operation. First, the profile is not symmetric, which makes the propagation constants of the two orthogonal fundamental modes dissimilar, and secondly, the depression within the cladding ensures that each mode has a cutoff wavelength. The butterfly fiber is weakly guiding, thus modal fields and propagation constants can be determined from solutions of the scalar wave equation. The solutions involve trigonometric and Mathieu functions describing the transverse coordinates dependence in the core and cladding of the fiber. These functions are not orthogonal to one another which requires an infinite set of each to describe the modal fields in the different regions and satisfy the boundary conditions. The geometrical birefringence plots generated vs. the normalized frequency V showed that increasing the asymmetry through the depth of the refractive index depression along the x-axis increases the maximum value of the birefringence and the value of V at which this occurs. The peak value of birefringence is a characteristic of noncircular fibers. The modal birefringence can be increased by introducing anisotropy in the fiber which can be described by attributing different refractive-index profiles to the two polarizations of a mode. The geometric birefringence is smaller than the anisptropic birefringence. However, the depression in the cladding of the butterfly profile gives the two polarizations of fundamental mode cutoff wavelengths, which are separated by a wavelength window in which single-polarization single-mode operation is possible.

     

    Applications of PM Fibers

    PM fibers are applied in devices where the polarization state cannot be allowed to drift, e.g. as a result of temperature changes. Examples are fiber interferometers and certain fiber lasers. A disadvantage of using such fibers is that usually an exact alignment of the polarization direction is required, which makes production more cumbersome. Also, propagation losses are higher than for standard fiber, and not all kinds of fibers are easily obtained in polarization-preserving form.

    PM fibers are used in special applications, such as in fiber optic sensing, interferometry and quantum key distribution. They are also commonly used in telecommunications for the connection between a source laser and a modulator, since the modulator requires polarized light as input. They are rarely used for long-distance transmission, because PM fiber is expensive and has higher attenuation than single mode fiber.

     

    Requirments for Using PM Fibers

    Termination: When PM fibers are terminated with fiber connectors, it is very important that the stress rods line up with the connector, usually in line with the connector key.

    Splicing: PM fiber also requires a great deal of care when it is spliced. Not only the X, Y and Z alignment have to be perfect when the fiber is melted together, the rotational alignment must also be perfect, so that the stress rods align exactly.

    Another requirement is that the launch conditions at the optical fiber end face must be consistent with the direction of the transverse major axis of the fiber cross section.

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  • Difference between UPC and APC fiber connectors

    Ever wonder what the difference is between ultra physical contact (UPC) and angled physical contact (APC) singlemode fiber connectors and which one to use? As usual, the answer is, “It depends.”

    Let’s take a closer look.

    8 Degrees of Separation

     

    The main difference between APC and UPC connectors is the fiber endface. APC connectors feature a fiber endface that is polished at an 8-degree angle, while UPC connectors are polished with no angle. UPC connectors are not exactly flat however; they have a slight curvature for better core alignment. Another more obvious difference is color. UPC adapters are blue while APC adapters are green.

    UPCvsAPCreflection

    What does the difference mean? With UPC connectors, any reflected light is reflected straight back towards the light source. The angled endface of the APC connector causes reflected light to reflect at an angle into the cladding versus straight back toward the source. This causes some differences in return loss, which is a measurement of reflected light that is expressed as a negative dB value (the higher the value, the better). Industry standards recommend that UPC connector return loss should be -50dB or greater, while APC connector return loss should be -60dB or greater.

    UPC-APCRemember, return loss is different than insertion loss, which refers to the amount of optical power lost through a connector or cable length. Insertion loss is what we use to determine loss budgets. Achieving low insertion loss is typically easier with UPC connectors due to less air gaps than APC connectors. However, manufacturing techniques have improved significantly to create more precise angles on APC connectors and bring insertion loss down closer to that of UPC connectors. 

    Application Considerations

     

    There are some applications that are more sensitive to return loss than others that call for APC connectors. For example, in higher optical wavelength ranges (above 1500 nanometers) like those use for RF video signals, reflected light can adversely impact the signal. That is why we see APC connectors being used by most cable companies and other FTTX providers in outside plant applications.

    APC connectors are also commonly used in passive optical applications (both GPONs and passive optical LANs) due to the fact that many of these systems also use RF signals to deliver video. Future higher-speed passive optical networks and other WDM applications that will use higher wavelengths via singlemode fiber will also likely require the reduced return loss of APC connectors.

    One thing that should be noted is that APC and UPC connectors cannot and should not be mated. Not only does it cause poor performance since the fiber cores will not touch, but it can also destroy both connectors. The last thing you want to do is cause permanent transmitter damage—especially with higher-cost singlemode equipment.

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