VIAVI Increases Capabilities for Industry-Leading Remote Fiber Test and Monitoring Portfolio

VIAVI Solutions Inc. announced the addition of many additional features to its award-winning Optical Network Monitoring Solutions (ONMS) family of remote test and monitoring solutions. The other capabilities provide even more network intelligence in fiber environments, which serve as the foundation for high-speed core, metro ring, and access applications in PON, 5G, and data center networks.

Due to wavelength and fiber density, optical network data rates are pushing new limits in transmission speeds through dense wavelength division multiplexing (DWDM), high fiber count cables, and complex point-to-multipoint and multi-fiber push-on (MPO) architectures. It is now more critical than ever for network equipment manufacturers (NEMs) and network operators to include remote network intelligence to provide excellent quality of service (QoS), near-zero downtime, and security. To do so, they must scale fibre network deployment, accelerate construction, increase service revenue, and manage an ever-increasing maintenance workload. Remote, automated intelligence enables the ability to climb high-quality standards and speeds without incurring additional expense or workload.

VIAVI responds with several new remote test and monitoring solutions that rely on rapid response and automation to manage dense, complicated networks:

• A patented new Flash Fiber Monitoring feature for ONMSi and SmartOTU software allows operators to detect and locate flash attenuation that causes network route flapping and burst network error conditions. The quality, which is an industry first, is 100 to 300 times quicker than regular monitoring, with performance capable of detecting flash attenuation in an unprecedented one-tenth of a second. One of the most common but damaging and difficult-to-diagnose problems is network route flapping. Until now, operators had no way of detecting or locating flash attenuation events, which cause millions of communication mistakes worldwide each year.

• New iOTDR Micro and Nano cards enable NEMs to integrate optical time-domain reflectometer (OTDR) technology into their elements at a low cost, with low power and a small footprint. The comprehensive software library for the cards provides operators with the most comprehensive variety of use cases in the industry via an element-integrated iOTDR solution, possibly saving NEM R&D teams 2–3 years of development time. The cards assist NEMs and their operators by providing an unparalleled range of applications such as fiber characterization, fiber monitoring, tapping security intrusion detection, fault demarcation, Raman amplified link test, and fiber degradation tracking for preventative maintenance.

• Using the NITRO BI Fiber Insight Platform for ONMSi, new fiber network analytics automate fiber diagnostics to proactively eliminate risks and establish a prioritized network performance improvement action plan. Fiber trends and aging use cases enable operators to view simplified reporting across the entire fiber network, allowing them to revise procedures. All fibers can be graded by cable, customer, network location, and fault type, transforming mountains of raw data into actionable insight.

In addition to the ONMSi remote fiber test system, VIAVI provides the industry's highest-performance OTDR technology, which generates an accurate, high-resolution trace to find faults, intrusions, and degradation in metro, core, access, and all-fiber networks. The OTU-8000 and OTU-5000 optical test heads from VIAVI work in tandem with ONMSi and NITRO software to allow users to optimize flexible OTDR capabilities, rack footprint, and price point. The system has applications for PON construction and service delivery, infrastructure monitoring, and network security.

About VIAVI

VIAVI is a leading global provider of network test, monitoring, and assurance solutions for communications service providers, enterprises, network equipment manufacturers, government, and avionics. We assist these customers in controlling the network by using the power of instruments, automation, intelligence, and virtualization. VIAVI is also a pioneer in light management solutions for 3D sensing, counterfeit detection, consumer electronics, industrial, automotive, and defense applications.