While advances in wireless and 5G technology get a lot of coverage in news stories about telecommunications, nothing has replaced fiber for its ability to transmit incredible amounts of data. And while wireless technology is what makes mobile connectivity mobile, it still depends on extensive fiber infrastructure for all the backhaul and core network connectivity. As data rates and mobile frequencies go up, mobile cell sizes shrink, requiring more fiber to backhaul the traffic. To show the scale of the fiber investment by mobile operators, Verizon has purchased over 12 million miles of fiber from Corning each year for a number of years [1]. This is enough fiber each year to go around the earth almost 500 times.
Unlike most other telecommunications equipment that has a lifetime of just a few years, a fiber optic cable can have an expected useful lifetime of 40 to 50 years. With this very long life and the cost of trenching and installing fiber, telecom service providers will install large count fiber cables with fiber counts ranging from 864 to 3,456 fibers per cable. Even if much of this fiber remains dark for many years, it is clear that this installed fiber is a very valuable asset for the service providers.
As with any other high-value long-lived asset, service providers are motivated to monitor and protect this asset. Certification of the fiber just after installation helps find any poor splice joints along the fiber route. While some fibers may be dedicated for continuous testing, all fibers should be tested periodically to insure there hasn’t been any degradation of performance. Of course, these results should be compared against all the earlier results which requires consistent naming and storage of the prior trace which can be a challenge when different personnel are making the measurements. Service activation is also a critical step that requires confirming performance before a customer initiates service on the fiber. And if there is ever an issue with the fiber, testing is needed to diagnose the cause and location of the issue plus to confirm a return to specifications after repair. One challenge to all this testing and management of the fiber is the very distributed nature of the fiber infrastructure – after all the fiber network runs all across the country. The ability to remotely test and manage the fiber infrastructure across a nationwide fiber footprint can offer a huge benefit to service providers.
Telescent addresses these challenges for service providers with their robotic patch panel system to automate fiber management. The Telescent system is purely fiber-based, offering low loss and a latching design that matches manual patch panel performance. Test equipment such as power meters and OTDRs can be included with the Telescent system to allow monitoring of any fiber either through automated scheduling or on demand. When a fiber needs to be tested or when a reconfiguration of a connection is requested, the Telescent robot grabs the end of the fiber and weaves it around the other fibers in the system to the requested port. A key advance in the Telescent system is an algorithm that the robot uses to weave around the other fibers while avoiding any blocking or knotting. This preserves the ability of the system to make any connection request (i.e. non-blocking) while scaling to over 1,000 duplex ports per system. The Telescent system also meets the reliability requirements for data centers and has passed NEBS Level 3 certification as well as multiple customer trials and has over 1 billion port hours in operation. An SDN API interface insures full remote software control of the Telescent system. The Telescent orchestrator software automates management of the system, reconfigurations, measurement equipment like OTDRs and result storage.
MOX Networks provides an example of how a service provider can benefit from the Telescent system [2]. MOX’s deployment of Telescent’s G4 NTM provides the company with a remote-controlled, reconfigurable fiber optic patch-panel and cross-connect platform to implement physical layer automation and diagnostics for MOX customers along their next-generation fiber route from Portland, Oregon to Seattle, Washington. This improves and speeds up the ability to diagnose and deliver exceptional customer service by MOX, including remote testing and provisioning, rapid fault isolation and service restoration along its next generation route in the Northwest.
“With Telescent’s patented robotic technology in place, fiber optic connections between network devices can be provisioned, tested, and delivered without requiring an individual to be dispatched - and can be completed in mere minutes,” comments Allen Meeks, COO, MOX. “We are excited to provide this network automation capability for our customers in the Pacific Northwest, as it also reduces service delivery intervals, offers real-time implementation capabilities, and is supported by sophisticated monitoring tools that allows us to locate cable faults automatically, should they arise.”
By offering a robotic system that matches the performance of manual patch panels while allowing remote configuration and diagnostics, Telescent allows service providers a way to offer exceptional service to their customers. For more information about Telescent, visit www.telescent.com.
[1] Verizon, Corning agree to $1.05 billion fiber deal | Reuters