Certified Network Cable Installer Training

Network  Cabling not long ago was esoteric and far too expensive for the average user or even small business.  The growing popularity of Fiber Optic coupled with extremely high bandwidth capabilities is creating more demand and the price is dropping.  Fiber Optic cable uses a glass (or plastic) fiber to send signals via modulated light.  With the sheer volume of bandwidth being consumed and demanded by businesses and consumers, Fiber Optic is poised to take the place of the “limited” bandwidth capabilities of Fiber Optic.

Bi-directional testing of fiber links for Tier 2 (OTDR) testing is not only required by industry standards and most manufacturers for warranty, it’s also the only way to know the actual overall loss for a link. That’s because measuring the loss of fiber connectors and splices, as well as overall link loss, depends on the test direction. Testing a fiber link in one direction can give you different results than testing the same fiber link in the opposite direction.

Because of the significant time and cost involved in testing from both ends, technicians often try to save as much time as possible by testing all links from one end before moving to the other end. Unfortunately this method does not work. To accurately test a fiber link in both directions, the launch and tail cords must remain in their initial measurement positions (even the standards say so) during both tests. But that is simply not possible if you test all the links from one end before moving to the other.