UTEL unveils proactive PON management system

UTEL, a telecommunications research and development company, says it has developed a complete passive optical network (PON) management system based on its Fast Light technology. The new system will reduce fiber maintenance costs by up to 90%, the company claims.

Fast Light, launched one year ago, is a central office optical time-domain reflectometer (OTDR) fiber-optic network test system that can reliably detect optical network terminal (ONT) reflections through 128 split PONs without expensive wavelength-dependent reflectors (see “UTEL launches Fast Light FTTH fault detector”). UTEL says this measurement capability is possible because of its Advanced Reflection Detection (ARD) technology.

“We have had the technology to change fiber business models in place for more than a year but now realize that what service providers are looking for is a complete solution. We have now finished and what we have is something more advanced than anything else on the market. It can find faults before customers detect them and makes sure the entire network is running at optimal levels with fewer expert engineers,” said Frank Kaufhold, managing director of UTEL.

The UTEL Fast Light PON management system consists of three subsystems, including a 1650-nm OTDR that can see through multiple cascaded splitters, an ultra low cost robotic optical test access switch that can be flexibly expanded as the network grows, and an optional operational support system (OSS) or application programming interface.

In service, the new Fast Light PON management system will eliminate the conventional manual fault finding processes along with the skilled technicians, the truck rolls, and the costly handheld OTDRs that were previously required to troubleshoot PONs, according to UTEL.

The new PON management system will be launched at ECOC 2013, September 22 – 26.

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