The inevitable emergence of fiber-to-the-desk

Dec. 1, 1997

The inevitable emergence of fiber-to-the-desk

Recent improvements in connectors and installation techniques, combined with the technologies? traditional advantages, promise to make fiber a winner in horizontal applications.

John Riccardi 3M Telecom Systems Div.

Forecasting technologies is a risky business. Today`s hot trend can easily become tomorrow`s historical footnote as a result of the seemingly endless stream of announcements about new technologies, new products, and new ideas.

One trend is unlikely to fade, however. The fast networking explosion is here, and network managers, users, hardware and software manufacturers, and content providers are all wrestling with the new age in which bandwidth and speed are king. More users with more-powerful machines on an expanding network of networks are demanding richer, more-powerful applications. While chip performance is doubling every 18 months, demand for bandwidth is now tripling every year, and the impact is being felt throughout the industry.

Emerging trends

Communications companies are racing to install up-to-date fiber optics in long-haul networks that will support the most advanced technologies--Asynchronous Transfer Mode, Synchronous Optical Network, wavelength-division multiplexing, and others--and meet the escalating requirements of voice and data users. As a result, data will travel across the country and the globe faster than ever before.

Within the local area network (lan), revenues from networking products have been growing at more than 20% annually for the last several years, and that level of growth is expected to continue. lan switching products, high-speed adapters, network management tools, and a wide variety of other hardware and software products to support user demands for faster networks lead the growth in network revenues. Fiber Distributed Data Interface (100 Mbits/sec), Fibre Channel (1062 Mbits/sec), Gigabit Ethernet (1000 Mbits/sec) and other high-speed protocols are moving into the mainstream. The most recent NetWorld+Interop was a veritable coming-out party for Gigabit Ethernet, with a wide range of vendors introducing products to support Gigabit Ethernet networks.

At the desktop, there is a new generation of network-centric, multimedia-ready systems. PC power has increased by a factor of 100 over the last decade, and memory by a factor of 1000. New machines running at 500 MHz are right around the corner, and terabit-sized databases, streaming video, and desktop group collaboration will become common in the near future.

The race for the last few meters

This fast-networking explosion is focusing attention on the cabling infrastructure that ties the desktop to the network and ultimately to the global information highway. It is in the infrastructure that network managers face the greatest bottlenecks in managing the speed, performance, and flexibility that new systems and technologies promise.

In risers, fiber-optic cabling is the medium of choice, with over 50% of the backbone and riser portions of networks now fiber-based. Fiber has been slower to reach the desk, however, and premises wiring is still dominated by Category 3 and Category 5 copper.

Just as it was difficult a few years ago for some to imagine why anyone would need a 300-MHz desktop system, many question the need for the speed and capacity offered by fiber-optic cabling systems and promised by enhanced Category 5 and other advanced copper solutions.

A good example of what will drive such a need is provided by the proposed Internet 2, which could deliver information up to a thousand times faster than today`s Internet. With that kind of capability, the Internet and the Web will become much different tools than they are today. Instead of being used just for e-mail and downloading from Web sites, the Internet will become a vehicle for rapid distribution of complex data to the desktop to support real-time decisions and collaboration.

An increasing number of network managers are deciding that the time is right to upgrade from Category 3 or Category 5 copper in response to existing user requirements or in anticipation of future user demand. Copper systems operating at enhanced Category 5 and beyond are on the horizon, with standards currently under development. This may satisfy the near-term emerging user requirements.

For many network managers, however, the next upgrade is being viewed as the time to migrate to fiber to address other operating objectives, such as reliability, network lifetime, signal interference, and performance. At the same time, new types of fiber, new fiber-connection technologies, and improvements in supporting electronics and optronics are substantially decreasing the cost and complexity of extending fiber-optic cabling to the desk.

According to a 1996 study by Sage Research, Natick, MA, 30% of the companies it surveyed expect that some or all of their horizontal cabling will be singlemode or multimode glass fiber within the next two years. Twenty-two percent of current horizontal cabling networks already include either singlemode or multimode glass fiber.

What type of fiber?

At the forefront of fiber`s move to the desk is multimode fiber. Thirty percent of respondents in the Sage Research study who indicated plans to upgrade to support high-bandwidth applications said they planned to use multimode fiber.

Among the advantages of multimode fiber is the fact that its core dimension is larger and more forgiving than higher-cost singlemode fiber. This means that the supporting connectorization technologies that make fiber installations affordable and less complex are more easily implemented with multimode fiber. As a result, it is reasonable to expect that electronics suppliers and other suppliers of system components will focus more and more on enabling multimode fiber installations.

The cost improvements that are now being seen in multimode fiber-to-the-desk systems will likely result in limited use of plastic optical fiber, especially in light of its performance and attenuation compromises. The demands of enterprise networks for flexibility in cabling architecture and optimum performance will most likely result in plastic optical fiber remaining a relatively small player.

The advantages of fiber

Multimode fiber, like other fiber types, offers many advantages.

Installation--Copper has long been perceived as more durable and easier to install than fiber. However, recent advances in technology and techniques for fiber-optics installation have changed this situation dramatically. Despite perceptions to the contrary, fiber has extremely high tensile strength--an average of 600,000 lb per sq. in.--exceeding all other media and, in fact, having a greater strength than steel. The result is extremely high pull strength. Fiber`s pull strength of 200 lb for 2-fiber cable is eight times that of Category 5 copper cable.

Despite its higher strength, fiber is also lighter and has a smaller diameter, so is easier to handle and requires less space in floors, ceilings, and narrow duct spaces.

Field termination and splicing of multimode fiber-optic cables and connectors have also become vastly simpler, eliminating copper`s traditional installation advantage. Quick-connect interconnects, such as the 3M VF-45 brand connector, offer ease of handling similar to 8-pin modular jack connectors (see Lightwave, July 1997, page 34). Field termination and installation can often occur in two minutes or less, greatly reducing the labor costs associated with fiber installation.

Fiber also offers installers more alternatives in terms of cabling architecture. Category 5 copper is limited to a distance of 90 m. Multimode fiber-optic cable, on the other hand, is approved for lengths to 300 m. At these distances, installers have much greater flexibility in network design. For example, the longer distances supported by fiber provide the ability to implement centralized cabling, offering greater security, reduced space requirements, and maintenance and management efficiencies.

Performance--While recent developments have made the installation of fiber easier and less costly, the advantages of fiber are most apparent in performance. Fiber cabling supports all of the emerging high-speed network interfaces and protocols and easily supports transmission speeds of 2.5 Gbits/sec with very little loss. In fact, the theoretical capacity of fiber, enhanced by advanced multiplexing techniques, could be as much as 25 terabits of data per second or more.

This capacity advantage of fiber cannot be overemphasized. The bandwidth demands of real-time data transfer, desktop videoconferencing, streaming video, high-resolution graphics, and similar applications will quickly fill available pipelines. As fiber-enabled networks become available, new applications will emerge that will take advantage of the additional capacity. As these applications emerge, users will demand access to them. Therefore, installation of fiber networks as a fundamental tactic for future-proofing is increasingly necessary.

Reliability and security--Fiber`s advantages in terms of reliability are well-understood. Fiber is immune to interference from electromagnetic, radio-frequency, or microwave sources, and it is also immune to crosstalk. Whereas copper cabling systems suffer from crosstalk because electromagnetic fields are generated around each signal-carrying conductor, the structure of optical fiber constrains the light energy to the core of the fiber. Fiber has very low attenuation and, unlike copper, loss does not increase at higher bit rates. Fiber is also more secure than copper, since it is not subject to being tapped for the purposes of eavesdropping or intercepting messages.

Maintenance--Maintenance is a significant part of systems cost. Furthermore, the complexity of moves, adds, and changes should be part of the consideration in choosing a network infrastructure. One recent study, for example, noted that 29% of network managers had moved one-quarter of their workstations in the past year. When installed using today`s new connector technology, fiber networks offer unparalleled ease of maintenance and change.

Cost--The per-port cost of fiber is rapidly falling, driven by improvements in supporting electronics and infrastructure. For example, the VF-45 connector and advancements in the accompanying transceiver, developed jointly by 3M and Honeywell and scheduled for release early in 1998, will result in dramatic price reductions for fiber-to-the-desk. Emerging technologies such as vertical cavity surface-emitting lasers will further improve the bandwidth-per-dollar calculation.

The cost equation really changes, though, when architectural flexibility and life-cycle management costs are taken into account. Fiber`s capability over longer distances enables centralized wiring systems, with the result being a lower cost of operations and less physical overhead. Cost savings resulting from improved network performance are also significant. Industry analysts at idc estimate that failures in structured cabling infrastructure could cost an enterprise up to $250,000 annually per 100 users (for another look at these costs, see the "Emerging fiber-optic technologies battle customer skepticism," page 49).

The net result is that the premium associated with optical fiber is decreasing to the point where it will be within the acceptable range of tolerance for most purchasers.

We are on the verge of a new era in information technology. Users expect that their systems will allow them to operate without constraints. Their rapidly growing demands for more bandwidth and faster performance are driving the rush to upgrade and evolve today`s networks.

Incremental improvements to existing network infrastructure are not viable responses. Enterprises cannot afford to upgrade cabling every three to five years, or even more frequently. The age of gigabit networks is here and, as a result, fiber-to-the-desk will emerge as the dominant infrastructure for new networks and network upgrades. u

John Riccardi is project manager at 3M Telecom Systems Div., Austin, TX.

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