Having a well-documented system that prevents abandoned or undocumented fiber from overtaking your cable plant is a necessary discipline to maximize the return on your installed cable plant.
Optical technology is robust and reliable, and if given the appropriate amount of care, the lifespan can exceed 20 years or more, one of the characteristics that make it a smart investment. However, if simple maintenance is not performed, it can fall into disrepair and become unreliable.
Fiber’s main nemesis is dirt. Keeping access panel doors shut, and replacing dust caps before and after use will pay dividends. Limiting access to sensitive areas of the cable plant installation will prevent bends, breaks and poor optical quality signals.
Optical infrastructures are used for a host of systems and solutions that look a lot more IT-centric than event and broadcast, and we are better prepared than ever to capitalize on this remarkable technology.
The implementation of fiber for the live event industry has many benefits, including reduced setup time, improved distribution of signals, long cable runs without transmission loss and dramatically reduced weight. As signals continually require more bandwidth, and equipment aggregates more signals into a single transmission path, optical fiber will continue to be a reliable and robust method of transmission and distribution of broadcast signals. Over the next several years expect to see more equipment fiber enabled right out of the box, to some extent reducing the complexity even further by eliminating the need to convert signals after the fact.
Bexel ESS has long embraced the benefits of fiber optics and has watched the industry at large adopt it as a standard, and the future only looks brighter.