Practical Knowledge About MTP Fiber Testing

High density cabling is common in today’s data centers. Characterized by fast installation, high density and high performance cabling, MTP fiber optic cable has become the common cabling solution to satisfy the ever increasing bandwidth requirements of data centers, such as MTP MPO fiber breakout cable, SM MTP trunk cable, MTP conversion cable and so on. We know fiber testing is a key step to ensure the high performance of the network deployment. However, with complicated structure, MTP fiber testing is not an easy job. This article share some practical knowledge about MTP fiber testing.

Challenge 1. MTP fiber optic cable is pre-terminated fiber whose quality can be only guaranteed as it exists in the manufacturer’s factory. Out of the factory, it must be transported, stored, and later bent and pulled during installation in the data center. There are all kinds of performance uncertainties before deployment. Proper testing of pre-terminated cables before installation is the only way to guarantee performance in a live application.

Challenge 2. MTP fiber optic cable has polarity. The simple purpose of any polarity scheme is to provide a continuous connection from the link’s transmitter to the link’s receiver. For MTP/ MPO apc connector, TIA-568-C.0 defines three methods to accomplish this: Methods A, B and C. It is common to make deployment mistakes because these methods require a combination of patch cords with different polarity types.

Challenge 3. Migration from 10G to 40G and 100G is common. Though this migration strategy is an efficient way to leverage the existing cabling, in comparison to 10G connection, the 40G and 100G standards call for different optical technology (parallel optics) and tighter loss parameters. In all, it is necessary to verify the links to ensure that the performance level achieves the requirement of the network deployment.

The proper MTP fiber testing is simple and quick enough, typically under 10 seconds per fiber. Test all 12 fibers—the whole cable—simultaneously and comprehensively (including loss, polarity). That sort of test capability changes the fiber landscape, enabling installers and technicians to efficiently validate and troubleshoot fiber—flying through the process by tackling an entire MPO 12 cable with the push of a button.

The tools used to carry out the test are available on the market, such as Metal Texture-400X Desktop Video Three-dimensional Microscope, Optical Power Meter, Optical Light Source and so on. These tools promise to save testing time and labor costs up to 95% over individual fiber tests.

The increasing demand for higher density cabling and data transmission rate is driving network technology to evolve at an ever increasing pace. To get high performance of network deployment, fiber testing cannot be ignored. As MTP fiber optic cable has been widely deployed, MTP fiber testing is an important step before installation. I hope after reading this article, you can learn more about MTP fiber testing.