Fibre splicing on the core network requires high-quality, low-loss splices to be made, repeatedly, at every network location. As splicing is typically a manually performed process; however, a splicing technician can make errors while splicing.

Typical problems can include:

Not cleaning the fibre

Once the technician has stripped the fibre, it is essential to clean it to remove any remaining debris from the stripping process. Leaving any contaminants on the fibre will create additional loss in the splice.

Damaging the fibre

A common failure of spliced fibre is a fracture in the vicinity of the splice. The fracture may often be caused by the fibre being damaged during the stripping process. A splicing technician must use the correct tools for stripping to prevent the fibre being damaged. It may not be immediately apparent that the fibre is damaged as the fracture may only become evident once the fibre is subjected to some stress.

Unaligned fibre cores

It is possible to splice the two fibres in such a way that the core is not aligned correctly. Misalignment can especially be a problem if the cores are not entirely concentric. In cases where the fibres cores are not aligned when spliced, there will be increased loss in the splice.

Weak splice

If the fibre core is not completely clean or the electrode on the splicer is dirty or damaged then the splice may be weak and fail under stress.

Manual fibre splicing on the core network can result in splices suffering from any of these problems when the splice is completed. Working in an exposed environment can easily lead to contamination of the splice or poor alignment of the fibre. In many cases the poor splice may not be apparent until the fibre is replaced back within the duct, putting tension on the fibre cable.

All-in-one fibre splicers remove the variability from splicing, using automation to ensure that the splice is made in a repeatable manner and preventing the need for revisits to a location in order to perform remedial work.

Supporting all the actions needed to make fibre splices using appropriate tooling, the automated splicing of the K33A delivers a repeatable high quality splice.

Built-in cleaning tools, cleaver, tensile strength test and automatic splice improve splicer teams productivity by removing the need for site revisits.

See how the K33A can revolutionise how you deplloy fibre. Complete your name and email address below and we will contact you to arrange a demo.

Conference calls taken at home are becoming more and more important, as part of the general trend of increased home working. There are huge cost benefits in hosting conference calls over the internet, as opposed to dialing into a traditional bridge with a landline or mobile. However, when the network or the conference system itself becomes congested, quality can suffer, leading to drops in productivity and in extremes, a completely unusable service.

For those enterprises increasingly depending on conference calls, the key question is:
“How can I measure and monitor the audio quality of my conferencing system such as Zoom, WebEx, GoToMeeting, BlueJeans, Skype or MS Teams?”

The critical point, is to get ahead of users, avoiding wasted time and lost productivity. Instead, find issues proactively and take corrective steps before users try to hold a conference call.

Much research has been conducted into measuring audio quality, initially this was based on humans listening in highly controlled conditions and rating the quality manually. It has since been modelled mathematically and can now be computed. The high level result of this research, is the MOS system. MOS stands for Mean Opinion Score and it ranges from 1 (bad) to 5 (excellent). A perfect five is hard to achieve in real world conditions.

A MOS value of about 2 or less will make a conference call inefficient, likely to end in failure and a complaint into a support team to investigate. Measuring the MOS of your conferencing system over time is critical to ensure it is working efficiently, to evidence an issue to the provider, or to help make the correct decision to switch supplier.

Many factors can impact MOS, loss, latency, jitter, CODECs and much more.

VoxPort Packet “VPP”, is a software based solution, deployed in a Windows environment and able to simulate and measure real audio incredibly flexibly. VPP nodes are deployed as required, centrally controlled by the DSLA Controller and can then make and receive SIP and VoLTE calls, either to each other, or into conference systems.