Fiber optic testers inspect, certify and troubleshoot fiber optic cabling and serve as essential tools for the maintenance of datacom networks. In a world dominated by fiber networks, ensuring fiber cables transmit light without loss is key to signal fidelity and demand for higher network speeds and wider bandwidths is ever-increasing.
Fiber optic cabling requires inspection and cleaning to guarantee the proper passage of light. Oil, dust and other contaminants may be deposited on fiber by a simple touch and distort the attenuation once a connection is made. Fiber inspection kits and optical power meters will verify the fiber is clean and ready to connect. For re-routing fiber connections to accommodate for wired network design changes, fusion splicers are necessary. A fusion splicer will split a fiber cable and then melt two cables together to allow for new fiber connections without sacrificing cabling or incurring light loss.
Once a new fiber cable infrastructure is installed, the cabling needs to be certified to IEEE, TIA/EIA and/or ISO/IEC standards depending on which applications the link is intended to run. Fiber optic cabling certification is divided into Tier 1 and Tier 2
testing. Tier 1 certification requires a fiber certifier, or optical loss test system (OLTS) to measure the absolute loss of the link as compared to standardized loss limits. Tier 2 testing focuses on troubleshooting and is performed with an optical time domain reflectometer (OTDR). OTDRs detect light reflected from bends or other inconsistencies in the fiber.
Rent fiber optic testers from ATEC. Our fiber tester rental inventory includes fiber optic test kits for inspection, fusion splicers, fiber certifiers, OTDRs and more from leading manufacturers like Fluke Networks, Fujikura and Viavi.