What Happens When Fiber Fails?

The advent of fiber has minimized troubleshooting in all types of networks. However, when fiber malfunctions or fails, it can cause a host of problems for businesses and people alike. What makes it even harder is attempting to guess the problem. For this reason, network administrators have to rely on making educated guesses to root out the cause in the event fiber fails. 

What Are the Common Causes for Malfunctioning Fiber?

When fiber malfunctions, you can look at the following causes:

·         Broken fibers due to extreme bending or physical stress

·         Inadequate transmitting power

·         Significant amount of signal loss due to a grimy connector

·         Significant amount of signal loss due to a long cable

·         Significant amount of signal loss due to defective connectors or splices

·         Significant amount of signal loss due to possessing several connectors or splices

·         Defective fiber connection in the splice container or to the patch panel

In most cases, when the connection is dead, it is due to a break or fault in the cable. If the connection is broken, find the source of your problem by looking the following causes:

·         The attenuation of the cable is high because the quality of splices is low or there are several splices

·         The connectors have become defective due to contamination from dust, humidity, fingerprints, and scratches

·         The strength of the transmitter is low

·         The connections in the wiring compartment are bad

How Does a Malfunctioning Fiber Affect the Processes of the Company?

If fiber fails, the company will have to go to extreme lengths to get it fixed. It will cost them a lot of money to install them all over again if repairing them is not a solution anymore. Companies will have to pay additional fees to have them protected as well, as they are prone to damage easily. 

Once you have the fiber installed at your company, you will have to purchase costly testing equipment to run tests. Another unforeseen disadvantage is being unaware of when you will lose the internet connection. Since fiber is susceptible to damage, construction activities, weather, animals, and railroad derailments all can cause the network to shutdown. 

If fiber fails due to any of these aforementioned situations, you along with your employees will be left without an internet connection. To reactivate the internet connection, it may take several hours or even days. Therefore, you need to take all precautions to ensure your internet connection remains active.

Even though you cannot control the work of Mother Nature, you can take steps to ensure the damage to the fiber is not due to any internal cause. You can clean the connectors, don’t bend fiber unnecessarily, examine for scratches on the connectors, run tests, use clean cords, and examine patch cord ends.

If you are looking for more solutions to your internet problems, you can give us a call so we can provide you with the ultimate solution to your problem.