Cabling Installation & Maintenance articles from July 2003

Cabling Installation & Maintenance archives from July 2003

Conference targets information needs of contractors, system users. (Editorial).
July 1, 2003... Warning: Several doses of unabashed self-promotion follow for the remainder of this page. Read at your own risk. The editorial staff of this magazine has worked hard over the past several months putting together the program for an event...

Maturing OTDRs have much to offer optical-fiber installers. (Perspective).
July 1, 2003... Years ago, Optical Time Domain Reflectometers (OTDRs) were big, expensive pieces of test equipment. Today, they're practically a commodity--more affordable, rugged, and portable. OTDRs can be used for a wide variety of purposes; for...

Why 6-position plugs in 8-pin jacks cause 4-aspirin headaches. (Ask Donna).
July 1, 2003... Are you seeing damage to 8-pin modular jacks caused by the insertion of 6-position plugs? Universities see this problem every semester. Student moves into dorm room, unpacks and plugs in telephone, then sets up and plugs in computer. But the...

Ladder Snake[TM]. (New Product).
July 1, 2003... MORE THAN DOUBLES YOUR CARRYING, CAPACITY OF LADDER RACK! Snake Tray[R] is pleased to announce Ladder Snake[TM], the new 601 series of cable trays for ladder racks. Ladder Snake[TM] has been designed to increase the cable carrying capacity...

Great specifications set clear expectations: carefully crafting your specification provides the baseline--design as well as logistical and administrative issues--from which both you and the building owner will benefit. (Design).
July 1, 2003... Whether you are responsible for a project's design, administration, estimate, or construction, specifications play a significant role. Frequently, a specification is seen as synonymous with "the design." While it is true that a specification...

Project Control System smooths rugged terrain installations: oregon contractor's proprietary job planning system aids in building telecom facilities where few dare to tread. (Installation).
July 1, 2003... As the wireless communications industry has grown, the need to locate towers and equipment in sensitive, remote, and hard-to-access locations has increased exponentially. Consumer demand for seamless wireless service means that providers have...

Keeping campus networks safe and secure: high-profile network security incidents on college campuses have been a major source of interruption of service. Here's how one university's IT team is fighting back. (Security).
July 1, 2003... Awareness of security issues has heightened dramatically over the past several years. High-profile security incidents at various campuses, including Indiana University, have sparked action in the education community. Actions have included the...

Contractors, distributors seeking common ground: distributors urged to provide more training when it comes to Category 6 cabling products. (Distributor Services).
July 1, 2003... Contractors today are calling on distributors to step up their efforts to provide them with training on structured Cabling installation. If they do, contractors say, distributors will take a large step toward returning to their core...

Piecing together optical-splicing products: fusion splices and mechanical splices meet different data-communications needs. (Product Update).
July 1, 2003... The last several years have seen a dramatic increase in the bandwidth requirements in the data-communications market. Until recently, the datacom market had been dominated by copper cabling, but now optical-fiber solutions have become...

Motorola, PowerDsine team up to make Power over Ethernet installations easier. (Industry Spotlight).
July 1, 2003... Motorola Inc.'s (www.motorola.com) Semiconductor Products Sector and PowerDsine (www.powerdesine.com) are partnering to create an application-specific integrated circuit for the emerging Power over Ethernet (PoE) market. The two companies...

Carlon Lamson goes residential with new structured cabling line. (Industry Spotlight).
July 1, 2003... Carlon Lamson Sessions (www.carlon.com) is making inroads into the residential market with a new line of structured cabling products. The company began to think residential after hearing feedback from cable installers who wanted to work in...

Solvent, cleaning tips go after connector impurities. (New Products).
July 1, 2003... The FCC2 fiber connector cleaner is a non-flammable, environmentally safe, residue-free solvent designed to clean fiber connector end faces. The company says it dries faster than alcohol, and the high-purity cleaning fluid is double-filtered to...

Body-building boosts singlemode connector. (New Products).
July 1, 2003... Singlemode LC connector plug kits are available in simplex and duplex for 900-pm buffered cable and 1.6 to 2.0-mm, 2.4-mm, and 3.0-mm jacketed optical-fiber cable. The company says it has improved the original design of the LC connector by...

More fiber connections in less space. (New Products).
July 1, 2003... Within the same profile as its 6-Pak, the Fiber 12-Pak SC is designed for crowded data centers and communications closets. It offers 12 SC ports (six duplex), is available in singlemode and multimode options, and is color-coded per EIA/TIA...

Patch cord management gets smarter. (New Products).
July 1, 2003... The iPatch Fiber Shelves extend the Systimax iPatch's real-time patch cord monitoring and control capabilities to the fiber portion of enterprise networks, and come with 12 duplex SC couplers (24 fibers). Each coupler has sensors to detect...

A leaner package for fiber-to-the-home. (New Products).
July 1, 2003... Designed for fiber-to-the-home installations, the ADSS drop cable features a unitube design within a smaller cable package for lower fiber counts. The manufacturer says the reduced fiber count and round cable technology makes its cable an...

A rack that fits under your desk. (New Products).
July 1, 2003... For remote business sites or installations with limited floor space, the HP Rack S10614 measures just 14U (24.5 inches), and can be placed underneath a desk. The tamper-resistant enclosure can ship with computing equipment pre-installed. An...

Portable printer for on-the-job productivity. (New Products).
July 1, 2003... The Spirit2100 portable printing system is designed for decreasing labor on label creation and installation while in the field. A roll of die-cut labels prints continuously at 1.5-inches per second--approximately four times faster than tape...

Lightweight basket cable tray. (New Products).
July 1, 2003... Featuring a lightweight, open-basket design, the FieldMate wire basket cable tray is designed to manage unexpected detours by offering flexibility for negotiating corners or following dips and rises. For most installations, says the...