The online gaming industry has been growing at a steady pace over the last decade, along with a rapid acceleration in the global popularity of eSports tournaments and massive multi-player style games hitting the market for entertainment. To support real-time, on-demand accessibility and the sheer amount of data being transmitted and received by the player’s gaming console or device, a fiber optic internet connection is critical for delivering the speed and bandwidth necessary for a positive player experience.

An Optical Time Domain Reflectometer (OTDR) is an essential device used by fiber optic technicians for validating the continuity and integrity of optical fiber spans along with identifying and locating physical issues like breaks and degradations that negatively affect signal performance. As OTDRs are complex devices that must be configured properly by the user for each test scenario, classroom training is critical for learning and training purposes, ensuring that technicians are taking the most accurate measurements when using in the field network environment.

Latency is a critical performance factor in communications networks as it is the time it takes for data to travel from one point to another.  As one might expect, service providers commit a great deal of time and effort attempting to reduce latency across the entire network, to deliver data and content faster to consumers and businesses. While important in general, some applications like financial trading, streaming video, and defense/military communications prioritize latency reduction with the goal of achieving as close to real-time communications as possible.

Optical fiber serves as the primary medium for transmitting data in today's high-speed communications networks and latency, one of the most critical performance measurements, is the time it takes for a light signal to travel from one point to another. While there are numerous factors that contribute to this value like installed devices when looking at overall network latency, the time delay incurred during light transmission across the fiber itself, also known as fiber latency, is a significant component in the equation.

With global connectivity and data consumption rising at an exponential rate every year, the need for robust, faster, and more reliable data transmission is at its peak. Supporting this demand, fiber optic technology is fundamental and critical to delivering high-speed communication services and supporting the modern economy. 

When designing fiber optic communications equipment or architecting a network, engineers spend a great deal of time evaluating, selecting, and certifying equipment to match the project’s needs. During this process, deciding to utilize either off-the-shelf style products or customized style products for satisfying specific engineering or network goals is very important and can have major ramifications on the outcome of the project. This article will briefly review these two categories of fiber optic products as both have their place in fiber optic communications systems, then discuss how using customized products in specific instances can deliver greater ROI.

What is the Dynamic Range of an OTDR?

Calculating Dynamic Range

At the most basic level, the calculation relationship for equating a dynamic range value to a fiber distance includes three components:

With the goal of helping fiber technicians, engineers, and telecom enthusiasts learn more about using and managing fiber, M2 offers several highly useful tools and resources for calculating fiber latency accurately, simulating fiber networks and technical optical fiber reference guides. There are several types of fibers and understanding more about them is extremely important for engineers working in the field of networking and communications. Designed by engineers for engineers, every solution and resource is geared to maximize value, benefit everyone, efficiency, and versatility to help you achieve your project goals. 

Are you thinking about upgrading your fiber optic network? Will your existing optical fiber infrastructure support the devices and services you plan to run? Could your organization benefit from having updated information about your fiber performance and inventory? If you answered “yes” to any of these questions, fiber characterization testing will help you gather the necessary data.