Frequently
Asked
Questions
(FAQ)

There are so many different ways you can build your cabling infrastructure and it can be mind boggling. Do I use Cat3 for voice or Cat5E ? Cat6 or Cat5 for data connectivity? What type of cabling will be least expensive with my Digital/Analog/VOIP phone system? These questions all can be answered by Star Networking Services professional.

In order to accurate and compare quotes, you have to make sure all of the Vendors are on the same page. It’s important that all of the Vendors have the same floor plan, cable specifications, total cable location numbers, etc. A site survey will be extremely important in deciding the final number and final specifications of the job. Having separate meetings with each of the Vendor individually might seem like the best idea but keep in mind that a pre-bid meeting attended by all Vendors will ensure all questions and answers will be known and heard by all parties making everything less confusing.

Solid and stranded cables both carry the same signal strength. Stranded cables are known for their flexibility and are used for patch cables that are constantly being plugged, unplugged, bent or installed. Typically all patch cables are stranded cables. Typically all backbone and permanent cable is solid because solid cable is more suitable for long cable runs.

The light travelling down fiber does so in extremely small diameter cores (9um in single mode). A small speck of dirt that is almost invisible to the naked eye could be enough to cause the fiber signal to be attenuated or blocked resulting in signal interference or even loss of transmission. This could be as simple as a finger print on the end of fiber optic connectors. All fiber optic connectors should be inspected during installation with a quality microscope and if required cleaned with an approved fiber cleaning technique.

A fusion splice is the technique of joining two fiber optic cores by melting the ends together using an electric arc. A fusion splicer is used because an extremely high degree of accuracy is required due to the small diameter of fiber optic cable and tight tolerances. The fusion splicer first aligns the cores and then applies the exact amount of heat needed to melt the ends before pressing them together and fusing the fiber to form a very low loss joint.

Yes a multimode to singlemode fiber media converter can be used. These products are available in both 10/100Base and Gigabit units with a range of distances available for the singlemode transmission side.

Dead zones originate from reflective events (fusion splices, fiber optic connectors, pressure points, etc) along the link and can affect the OTDR’s ability to accurately measure attenuation on shorter links and differentiate closely spaced events. The OTDR will become temporarily blinded by the first event it picks up and will not see upcoming events close to each other and will instead pick them up as one event. Dead zones can extend hundreds of metres from the OTDR unit but can be reduced (but never eliminated) by adjusting the pulse width in accordance with the length of the fiber.

Gel filled loose-tube for underground direct bury applications with options of termite and rodent protection via nylon jacket and/or armouring. Indoor / outdoor tight buffered fiber optic cable can be used for internal or external fiber cable runs but should not be installed underground even if within conduit.

OM3 fiber must be used where the fiber optic cable run distance exceeds 220 metres @ 1000mbp/s (1Gb/s) speed on a typical multimode network. OM3 will extend the distance up to 550 metres @ 1Gb/s speed. OM3 can also handle 10GbE (10,000mbp/s) at a distance of up to 300 metres. OM3 should be installed to help future-proof your multimode installation.

Multimode fiber has a relatively large light carrying core usually 50 or 62.5 microns in diameter. It is normally used for short distance transmissions with LED based optical fiber equipment and has limitations in regards to bandwidth capacity and distance. Single mode fiber has a smaller light carrying core of 8 to 10 microns in diameter. It is used for large bandwidth transmissions over longer distance with laser diode based optical fiber transmission equipment.

Loose tube fiber cable of gel-filled or dry-core construction should be used whether fiber cable is direct buried or installed within underground conduit. There is no guarantee against water filling a conduit or the cable becoming exposed to sunlight at some point in the run so an underground rated cable with UV-resistant jacket is recommended.

OM4 is the next generation multimode fibre to support existing 1 and 10Gb/s applications as well as future 40 and 100Gb/s systems. It will allow for extended distance of 550 metres at 10Gb/s.

A fiber enclosure or FOBOT as it is also known is a tray, box or dome designed for breaking out and terminating fiber optic cable. Fiber enclosures usually are fitted out with splice trays and thru-adaptors and allow a point in the network for mass termination, splicing and patching of cables.