Technical Horsepower Consulting Technical Paper:

Cable and Connectivity Standards:
Where Will They Meet?

The fiber optic communication industry faces an ongoing challenge: the stratification of standards at the connectivity level. In particular, there has been a growing disparity between available cable specifications and connectivity specifications. Fiber optic cable and connectivity specifications have evolved separately, over time, as cables were installed in new applications such as aircraft, traffic control, and stadiums.

Clearly, another layer of standards is not the answer. Instead, this paper attempts to provide a workable solution by adding procedural compatibility tests (“red flag” tests) as a subset of existing cable and connectivity specifications. These relatively simple tests would allow fiber optic cable assembly production facilities and installers to determine whether a particular GR-qualified cable and GR-qualified connector (or splice system) will work together to produce a GR-qualified assembly. The ultimate question is: Where should the optical communication industry add cable/connectivity compatibility tests within existing specifications?