Graybar (www.graybar.com) recently announced that 11 industry vendors have passed the testing and certification procedures of its VIP Fiber program. VIP Fiber is an independent-laboratory testing program for multimode fiber-optic cabling systems that was created to test components for their performance and interoperability.
Graybar said that Avaya (www.avaya.com), Berk-Tek (www.berk-tek.com), and Ortronics (www.ortronics.com) were among the 11 vendors that met the program's qualifications. The tests are conducted by ETL Semko Testing Laboratories.
"The demand for enterprise fiber networks continues to grow," Graybar said in a release announcing the additions to VIP Fiber. "Based on preliminary data released by industry analyst Frost & Sullivan, the premises fiber-optic cabling market in the United States is projected to grow steadily to $240 million by 2005," the release continued.
Said Alpa Shah, research director for enterprise communications and carrier networks at Frost & Sullivan, "This market is driven by a variety of factors. The include future bandwidth demand for more video-type applications, more standards supporting fiber architectures, lower price differential between fiber and copper-based systems, projected increases in commercial buildings being wired for fiber-optic networks, and an uptake of fiber-to-the-home and fiber-to-the-curb."
"Today, more university and health-care campuses, business buildings and government facilities-and even entire communities-are being wired with fiber to unclog the bandwidth bottleneck and enhance online performance for end-users," said Dennis DeSousa, Graybar senior vice president, sales and marketing. "And when contractors and service providers buy and install a cabling system certified through our VIP Fiber program, they are assured the tested channels will exceed the TIA/EIA and IEEE standards by at least 0.25 dB."
DeSousa added that 1-Gbit/sec transmission over 50-micron fiber has emerged as the preeminent application for the visible future in new communications networks. Designed for backbone fiber solutions and higher-speed networks, the VIP Fiber program measures performance beyond the TIA/EIA-568B.3 cable and connector specifications.
Under the VIP Fiber testing program, the cable and connectors-the same materials customers would buy from one of Graybar's more than 250 branch or zone warehouses-are randomly selected by ETL Semko from Graybar's off-the-shelf inventory, and tested quarterly to ensure consistent quality.