Anyone else doing continuous fiber monitoring?
I just finished up a three year project installing it in our system.
Basically each headend and hub site gets an EXFO OTDR connected to the fibers going to the sites, or nodes or whatever fiber you want to monitor.
This OTDR tests all the fibers connected to it in a round robin test pattern.
This system is also tied in to our fiber mapping system. We had to draft all our fiber routes, splice points, fiber matrix from the hubs to the sites/nodes. (This was the real time consuming part)
It’s also tied in to Google Earth. So now when a fiber gets cut, gets pinched in an enclosure or damaged in some way, we get an email telling us what site/node it is, what type a fault it is, (break or degradation)
Distance from the hub with the latitude and longitude plus a google maps link showing the fault area. It also includes an OTDR trace with all the data.
This system is great and has really cut down the time in searching for the damage. We usually know where the issue is within 12-15 feet before a technician rolls.
Anyway I haven’t heard of any other systems out there using it. Was just curious if anyone else was.
