VIAVI revealed during ECOC 2018 in Rome, the results of its global study looking at the rise of parallel optics and multi-fibre connectivity in service provider networks, enterprises and data centres.
According to the company's 2018 MPO study,deployment of ribbon and multi-fibre push-on (MPO) connectors is expected to grow by more than 20 per cent in the next three years, creating significant challenges for network operators and cabling contractors.
Amongst some of the other findings of the study, contaminated connectors were found to be the number one cause of troubleshooting MPO networks. Meanwhile, some 40 per cent of respondents said they were already working with MPO regularly.
Port density and faster speed were found to be the top reasons for implementing MPO. Four out of five respondents spend up to 20 per cent of their work week troubleshooting physical network issues.
'Relentless bandwidth demand and network convergence are driving the need for a higher degree of cable and connector density across the entire network – core, metro, access and data centre,' said Craig Black, senior director, general manager of fiber optic test at VIAVI Solutions. 'This confluence of trends is challenging everyone to deploy denser and simpler MPO solutions, and for installers and technicians to be more diligent as they inspect, test and certify MPO cables, in order to ensure optimum network performance.'
