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. 

Fiber is the future, and for datacom installers, large enterprise operations, and data centers, time is money for fiber testing, inspection, and certification. Meaning, time wasted re-testing work slows progress on a project, delays contractors getting paid, and squanders valuable IT resources.

We here at Fluke Networks understand the move toward fiber and recently unveiled three new “accelerator” solutions for our family of cabling certification and testing solutions. The FI-7000 FiberInspector Pro, Singlemode MultiFiber Pro, and SmartLoop OTDR speed fiber test, inspection and certification within data center, datacom installation, and large enterprise operations - in most cases, slashing the time to complete fiber jobs by more than 50 percent. 

First, meet the FI-7000 FiberInspector Pro, a brand new addition to the Versiv family of cable certification testers. We all know the saying about what happens when we assume, right? The new tester takes away that danger for fiber end-face compliance. Aimed at attacking the biggest enemy of well-performing fiber links - dirt - the FI-7000 eliminates the guessing game of “is that fiber clean or dirty?” by delivering pass/fail certification, per the IEC 61-3000-3-35 standard, in two seconds or less. 

Even better (yes, it gets better!), the FI-7000 incorporates advanced analysis software to highlight detected defects, making contaminated areas easier to identify. 

The new accelerator solutions don’t stop at dirty fibers - they extend all the way into MPO cabling. Singlemode MPO cabling is becoming a popular option in large data center and enterprise environments, due to its bandwidth and distance advantages. Until now, testing singlemode MPO cabling meant using testers not specifically designed for that purpose, which could take more time to complete testing. 

We’ve pioneered a first-of-its-kind solution, Singlemode MultiFiber Pro, to cut testing time by up to 95 percent, from roughly 6.5 minutes to 20 seconds. When you think about how many MPOs are in the data center, that’s a lot of labor time that can be allocated elsewhere. 

Last - but certainly not least - is SmartLoop OTDR, a new addition to the popular OptiFiber Pro OTDR. Bi-directional fiber testing is a notoriously lengthy and time-inefficient process, requiring datacom technicians to travel to the far end of the fiber or take equipment into hazardous or difficult-to-access areas. SmartLoop OTDR is the industry’s first product to test two separate fiber links in a single test. And that cost savings is huge – by eliminating the need to travel to the far end of the connection, SmartLoop OTDR cuts network testing time by 50 percent! 

We see our new accelerator fiber solutions as the “Three Musketeers” of the datacom testing and certification industry, here to slash fiber job completion time in half - so much so, we made it into an infographic (below). For more information on Fluke Networks’ fiber inspection, certification and testing, please click here.  

To download the PDF version of the Three Musketeers,  click here.

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