Fiber Optic Port Identification With The iD-Cap™
Fiber Optic Deployments Using Optical Fiber Connectors And Adapters Require Identification
Fiber optic deployments using optical fiber connectors and adapters require identification of specific optical ports during installation, interconnection, maintenance, testing or trouble shooting.
A typical service provider utilizing a fiber optic connection, might extend from a source or Central Office to a cross box in a neighborhood, from a cross box to a curbside access terminal, from the access terminal into a subscribers home, office building, school, hospital or where ever the fiber terminates.
Within such a deployment, connections of the optical fibers between the various intermediaries are typically accomplished through the use of fiber adapters mounted within patch panels, cabinets, or racks. Each of the panels, cabinets, or racks typically includes a large number of optical connectors, adapters or ports all aligned along a densely packed interface in which fiber connections can be coupled.
Thus, because of the sheer number of cables and the small area in which the cables are packed, as well as the distances and interconnections required of fiber optic applications, the problem of uniquely identifying specific connectors becomes very clear.
Fiber Optic Dust Caps Protect Fiber Optic Connectors From Contaminates And Damage
Further, as patch panels become increasingly more densely packed, effective identification of individual fibers becomes increasingly more important.
Fiber optic dust caps protect fiber optic connectors from contaminates and damage that can cause serious network slow downs or crashes. Whenever a fiber cable is not plugged in, it should always have a dust cap protecting each connector. By simply covering your fiber connector end faces, network uptime and performance can be greatly improved. In general, dust caps are suggested on any fiber optic connector or interface that is not actively in use. However, it doesn’t mean that they can completely keep out contaminates. Quite the opposite, some times dust caps can be one of the contaminant sources in fiber systems. Dust is everywhere, it can some times find its way into a dust cap and the inside of the dust cap can actually have significant dirt or other contaminates that are easily transferred to the contact’s end face. What if a dust cap could serve more than just one purpose?
What Is An iD-Cap™ And How Does It Serve More Than Just One Purpose?
What is an iD-Cap™ and how does it serve more than just one purpose? An iD-Cap™ is a patented and patents-pending dust cap and Identification Cap for a fiber optic panel. It is designed to fit the greater majority of manufactured fiber optic panel adapters. The iD-Cap™ not only decreases dust contamination but also assists in Port Identification.
Port Identification is becoming one of the biggest problems when troubleshooting and when adding new subscribers to a fiber optic network. Fiber optic panels are becoming higher density because of the demand for Fiber To The Home FTTH, Fiber to the business FTTX and increase of massive data centers for cloud computing. Consider the following day to day situation.
Many Times Technicians Find Themselves With A Very Big Problem
Many times technicians find themselves with a very big problem, not receiving light to the end customer during an FTTH or FTTX deployment. The laser light from the central office is NOT reaching the home, business, school, hospital or where ever the optical light is designed to go. No light, no service, not good! Have you experienced this situation? If not, you are absolutely going to experience this situation as the demand for bandwidth continues to grow and grow.
With iD-Caps™ installed the amount of time to identify the correct port for testing, troubleshooting and turn up for a subscriber, results in substantially quicker problem resolution and substantially lower labor costs for the service provider.
How Does The iD-Cap™ Work?
How does the iD-Cap™ work? The iD-Cap™ is designed to be used with a piece of test equipment called a Visual Fault Locator or VFL. The VFL is used to perform optical fiber tracing for port and fiber identification. A technician working anywhere there is a fiber termination and attempting to diagnose a fiber optic cabling connection problem, can apply the VFL to the terminus of the fiber optic connector. The VFL emits a bright beam of laser light into the fiber via the terminus back towards the Central Office sending light to the subsequently connected port. Another technician located at the source location can see a visual indication, on the iD-Cap™, a ruby-red glow of a particular port at the Central Office to discover the corresponding source port from the iD-Cap™. In many cases the technician will realize that he or she is connected on the wrong port and will quickly realize the problem why the home or business is not receiving light.
This Process Can Be Repeated And Replicated
This process can be repeated and replicated for any subset of fiber runs in order to identify subsets of cabling. A technician may want to identify the cabling subset from the curbside access terminal back to only the cross box. In such a case, the VFL can be applied from the curbside access terminal for visual indication at the cross box. If the service provider is using iD-Caps™ the issue can be quickly identified and save countless hours of troubleshooting thus lowering labor costs. In most cases this will save hours if not an entire day or days finding the issue.
iD-Cap™ is the SOLUTION because of Labor Cost Savings, Safety, Efficacy and Ease of use. The iD-Cap™ not only decreases dust contamination but also assists in Port Identification. Consider the multitude of advantages in using iD-Caps™ on all of a networks ports and on all of a networks panels.
iD-Cap™ is the SOLUTION
Labor Cost Savings; The Service Provider or Data Center will save labor costs by quickly identifying the correct fiber optic ports during troubleshooting with the iD-Caps™. A technician is able to easily and safely identify circuits in real time, real fast with iD-Caps™. The iD-Caps™ designed fit lowers the amount of port cleaning time by reducing dust contaminants entering the port.
Safety; With iD-Caps™ installed, technicians will NOT be pulling off random fiber optic dust caps to find out which fiber optic port has laser light behind it or not. Laser light is easily detected and seen without removing an iD-Cap™ from its panel. The chance of laser to eye contact is decreased.
Efficacy; The state of the art of dust caps is to protect fiber optic connectors from contaminates and damage. The iD-Cap™ assists with port identification and more!!!
Ease of use; Smooth installation, removal and a designed universal fit up with most any port.