Preparing for Gigabit Ethernet
New standards mean not only new capabilities, but new training requirements as well.
GRACE F. MURPHY, Assistant Editor
The Gigabit Ethernet standard now in the works is affecting more than end-users looking for a faster system: It`s requiring network designers and installers to get more education.
The Gigabit Ethernet Alliance recently postponed the ratification of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (ieee) 802.3¥draft standard (Gigabit Ethernet) to June. Between now and May, the ieee`s Gigabit Ethernet Task Force will follow a work plan to resolve technical issues.
Eric Pearson, president of Pearson Technologies, Inc., Acworth, GA, offers a fiber-optic network design course that includes a Gigabit Ethernet section and a follow-up course for those responsible for proper installation, troubleshooting, and maintenance of commercial and residential fiber-optic systems.
Pearson says the Gigabit Ethernet standard, once adopted, will take care of design problems. But fiber-optics installers who are used to working with plug-and-play systems may need to refine polishing and fusion techniques, and learn enough about network design to troubleshoot problems.
Pearson anticipates that installers working with multimode fiber will need training in order to meet the standard`s reflectance specification. "I`m not going to say the training changes subtly and I`m not going to say significantly; it`s somewhere in the middle," he says.
Installers working with multimode fiber and trying to achieve a low reflectance value can buy a multimode pigtail that has been factory-polished. "Then the installers have to know how to fusion splice, and that means they have to know how to cleave. While it isn`t incredibly sophisticated, people do have problems with splicing and cleaving unless they have the training to recognize where their problems are coming from," he says.
Installers can also try hand-polishing the connectors. "We do it with singlemode connectors and we get reasonable results. I can`t comment on what kind of results we`d get on multimode because there is no commercially available test equipment to measure reflectance on multimode fibers today, especially connectors," Pearson says.
Even using machine-polished connectors with multimode fiber in a Gigabit Ethernet system can be tricky, Pearson says. "If you`re going to machine-polish, it`s easy in that you don`t have to train people; however, the procedures that I`ve seen for the machines don`t work. You have to develop your own. You need some basic understanding to know where your problems are coming from in order to develop a machine process," he says.
In the future, installers may also need to learn bit-error-rate testing on Gigabit Ethernet fiber-optic links, Pearson says.
Larry Johnson, president of The Light Brigade, Kent, WA, says designers, not installers, are the ones who need educating. "The terminations are going to be pretty standard as well. The testing is the same. This is not a contractor issue," he says. Designers are not used to working with bandwidth specifications on multimode fiber and will need educating, according to Johnson.
"For years, the industry has said to install 62.5/125-micron fiber as basic multimode fiber for campus and commercial buildings, although it`s not designed for gigabit transmission over a kilometer span. For years, we`ve been saying this is going to be a problem, as data rates get closer to the gigabit range, and sure enough, the Gigabit Ethernet standards body is recognizing that the limitation is going to be less than half a kilometer," he says.
"I don`t feel that the contractor that`s installing the cable, terminating it, and testing it should be responsible for the bandwidth question. For me, that responsibility lies strictly with the designer," Johnson says. "Those who are designing for the future have probably addressed it. Those who are designing and have not taken into account bandwidth issues need to be retrained and need to understand that this industry is not static. Unfortunately, too many were caught up on attenuation instead of bandwidth, and now many organizations are going to have to place new cable to resolve the problem."
Johnson says network designers will need to come in for refresher training on a spot basis. "I think it`s a case where they will need technical training, not hands-on, but for understanding issues, the changes in the industry, and the changes in specifications," he says. q