As more people use their living room as their “movie theatre”, the expectations of high quality and high definition signaling and picture have never been greater. As a result, fiber optic technology plays a key role in bringing unparalleled signal integrity from the studio, arena or sporting event to the home.

OCC’s reputation in providing products for harsh environments fits perfectly into the broadcast industry where down time is not acceptable. We have, and continue to provide, the broadcast market with fiber optic cables that are field-tested to withstand the most extreme handling. OCC’s stadium and arena cables are optimized for the rigors of difficult cable pulls, high tensile loading, and severe crush occurrences and can repeatedly endure the abuse associated with the extreme demands in rapid deployment and retrieval applications. Where standard fiber optic cables are likely to fail, OCC’s broadcast cables are particularly well suited to the harsh environment of field-shoots.

In the coming weeks, OCC will be exhibiting several of our broadcast products at the 2012 NAB show in Las Vegas.  Some of these products include our new MHC II connectors, MARS Reels, Cartridge System, and of course OCC’s line of broadcast cables.  With OCC’s cables, broadcasters have a practical and reliable way of reaping the benefits of high capacity data transmission in challenging environments without the delicacy normally associated with traditional fiber optic cables.

Stephen Porach, Manager Business Development for the Enterprise Solutions, has a degree in Mechanical Engineering (BSME) and has worked in the telecommunications industry for over 17 years.  He previously worked for SMP Data in a Marketing and Technical Sales role and has held numerous other positions in the electrical, mechanical, and telecommunications markets.
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We just returned from the 2012 BICSI Winter Conference, which was  one of OCC’s most successful product launches.  The  Procyon family of pre-terminated fiber cable, fiber enclosures and data center cabinets is the culmination of over a year of soliciting customer feedback and broad industry research.

Data Centers continue to be the fastest growing segment of the telecommunications industry.  Recent studies indicate that data centers  will continue to experience significant growth for at least the next 5 years.  Since 2008, over 50% of the traffic on the internet either  originates or terminates in a data center.  And, traffic within the data center has more than doubled.  This is not limited to just the large data centers owned by Google and Apple, new regulations in the medical industry demand increased data management, state and local governments are digitizing records; all this fuels the need for data centers, large and small.  Procyon product line is designed to capture both the fiber and copper infrastructure within that space.

OCC’s Procyon fiber enclosures offer the highest density copper and fiber terminations in the industry.  What does this mean, for  a 10 Gig fiber application?  It means 144 fibers in one rack space.  That same enclosure can also handle 1152 fibers supporting a 100 Gig application!  Procyon offers a clear migration path for the user as they increase data throughput from 10 Gig to 40 Gig and up to 100 Gig, all with pre-terminated cables and cassettes.

OCC’s  engineering team has developed two new fiber optic cable constructions for the Procyon family.  The HD cable is an indoor plenum rated high density cable suitable for MPO type terminations.  The new HC cable is another of OCC’s popular indoor/outdoor fiber optic  cables.  Its diameter is 20% less than the competition,  and because it does not use ribbonized fiber, it has no preferential bending.  Speaking of bend radius…both cables are offered with OCC’s bend tolerant fiber.  OCC’s bend tolerant cables offer the best bend radius performance in the industry.  This is very important feature as  fiber optic cables are now being installed in some very tight spaces.

OCC’s  new Procyon Data Center cabinets make  a great home for our fiber enclosures and cables as well as the servers and switches they will be connected to.  These cabinets are 42” in depth and 45 rack units tall.  The server cabinet is 24” wide and the switching/patching cabinet is 30” wide, these cabinetsare specifically designed to provide optimal  cable management  supporting  increased cable volume .  The cabinets also have several unique features such as angled pdu support brackets which makes it easy to access cable and view displays, easily adjustable front and back mounting rails and PDU mounting brackets which can accommodate popular vendor components.  These are just a few of the features offered with the Procyon Data Center cabinet making it  the ideal choice to support telecommunications equipment in all applications.

Please take a look in the new 2016 catalog or on the website, or contact a member from the Sales team for more information.

Dr Ian Timmins is a senior member of technical staff in the research and development group in Asheville, NC. His areas of interest include wireless communications, distributed antenna systems, high performance copper and fiber cabling, data centers, and green energy initiatives. Ian is an IEEE member and participates in several standards development groups.
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Density is one of the leading considerations for data center designers and operators with all major industry connectivity players offering new solutions for today’s technology demands as well as pathways to the projected requirements of tomorrow. That being said, density in the data center is emerging as a key design consideration for two distinct reasons:

1. Cost attributed to installation and maintaining cabinet space on a per rack unit basis
drives higher interconnect counts into a traditional form factor.

2.  Emerging technologies require more fiber counts for the upcoming 40G and 100G
Ethernet.

OCC’s new Procyon product was designed to accommodate these trends in technology; providing high density connectivity components orientated at LC (10G) and MT (40 and 100G) based connectivity, as well as the impending evolution between the two technologies.  Uniquely, OCC has engineered these products with very distinctive features compared to the leading competition designed with the end user experience in mind.  To compensate for this trend towards increased density, cable management features for enhanced accessibility of both the trunk cables in the rear and patch cords in the front

have been patented and released to market in February 2012.  The Procyon system offers pre-terminated trunk cable assemblies for quick on site installation, as well as elimination of field termination of high count fiber optic connectors. Furthermore, Procyon 10G, 40G and 100G cassettes offer integrated cable management features designed for ease of accessibility for anyone wanting high density while maintaining easy individual jumper access.  Beyond this ground breaking feature to cassette design is the accompanying patch panel chassis features, including a distinct 3-tier cable management system that couples the high density cassettes in a vertical manner directly to the chassis to ensure easy of cassette removal when installed density is at maximum. For trunk cable installation on the rear of the patch panel, the high density sub groups are managed with OCC’s Temp Grip technology which provides a quick and convenient mechanism to configure your interconnect hardware.

To check out OCC’s solution to the problems of high density requirements of the data center, visit https://www.occfiber.com/procyon .

OCC’s Regional Manager, AG Melson, talks with customers about some of the features and benefits of OCC’s new HC cable at the 2012 BICSI Winter Conference in Orlando, FL!

This week’s blog was written by OCC’s Senior Engineer, Michael Stover.  Holding a Bachelor of Science degree in Electrical Engineering from Tennessee Technological University, Michael has 15 years of experience in the fiber and cable industry with areas of expertise in Power Transmission and Telecommunications.  In this blog post, Michael discusses OCC’s new HC cable as well as how it was received at this year’s 2012 BICSI Winter Conference and Exhibition.

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OCC introduced the new HC cable at the 2012 BICSI Winter Conference in Orlando, Florida this year.  The HC cable features OCC’s unique tight buffer fiber units in a cable design that produces a lightweight, flexible, small diameter, and extreme rugged fiber optic cable.  The HC cable has the density of a ribbon cable, but the ruggedness of a tight buffer and is also 20% smaller in diameter and 20% lighter in weight compared to conventional cables with Loose Tubes.  In addition, the HC cable has no hollow tubes or preferential bend.  No other cable matches it’s mechanical and environmental performance while still maintaining a small diameter and high-duct efficiency.

The HC cable was received very well at BICSI by all those who stopped by our booth.  Customers were very impressed with the small size and high fiber counts as well as the flexibility and ruggedness of the cable.  Customers were also eager to be able to purchase this cable for a wide range of applications and installations.

Dr. Ian TimmIns is an R & D Engineer for OCC based out of our Asheville facility.  He specializes in the Data Center, Enterprise, Industrial, as well as Mining industries with an emphasis in T1/E1 Connectivity and CDS development.  Ian has worked on CDS installs at various locations  such as hospitals, colleges, and manufacturing facilities during his career and has also been a part of the Data Center Rack Program with K2.

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BICSI in Orlando is always the biggest annual trade show for our industry. Each year, everyone looks forward to seeing who’s booth looks best, catching up with old friends, and meeting new ones. These are all great things, but for me, the reason I look forward to BICSI each winter can be summarized in a single phrase – new products.

2012 is an exciting year in our business as technology has evolved to encompass so many more pertinent aspects to product performance. Gone are the days as to which component has the most head room for crosstalk performance. Now, everything from alien crosstalk to thermal analysis using computational fluid dynamics and energy efficiency seems to be a consideration for every component. The emergence of 40/100G Ethernet using MTP connectors has resulted in products that require 6-12 times the fiber count in a single patch cord, while at the same time the number of connectors in a single rack space are increasing. In short, density and cable management have reached unprecidented levels and I am very much looking forward to evaluating how OCC’s R&D efforts, in which I am intimately involved, will compare to the competition. Other areas of emerging importance also include thermal management systems for cabinets, in which similar levels of technology advancement can be anticipated.

OCC has made a tremendous step forward in recent years with new high density products emerging, a cabinet line, and a complete line of both copper and fiber products. This year will see the introduction of a complete data center system, with several distinct innovations across the product line, making BICSI Winter Conference 2012 the best one ever. So make sure you come by our booth and say hello.

See you in Orlando!

On Monday we asked our followers on Twitter if they knew what our smallest diameter cable was.  After several guesses, we’re here to not only give the answer, but also break down some of the key features and benefits of this particular cable.  So what is OCC’s smallest diameter cable that holds the most fiber?  The answer would be our HD cable.

OCC’s Bend Tolerant HD cables, which are available in 2 through 72 fiber counts, give customers more options when it comes to data center or space-constrained application design. The small diameter of the HD cable also saves space and greatly increases capacity in tray systems, which ultimately helps improve overall cable management.

In addition to more space and an improved cable management system, the HD cable helps enable better cooling in data center cabinets.  Due to its’ small size, the cable offers more floor space which can dramatically change the amount of air flow within a cabinet, making it the ideal solution for a data center.

OCC’s HD Bend Tolerant cable is the ideal cable for any high-density application where small size, lightweight, and very small bend radi are needed or desired.

The new year is here, which means it’s time to choose our last product to feature in our Year in Review blog series.   Although OCC had many exciting new products launched in 2011, our MARS Cartridge System was certainly a big addition to OCC’s line of Modular Advanced Reels products.

The MARS Cartridge System offers the most advanced, self-contained fiber optic reeling system for broadcast, military or deployable communication environments.  That is why we first launched the Cartridge System in September 2011 at DSEi in London, the world’s largest fully integrated defense and security exhibition.  Those who stopped by our booth were amazed at just how lightweight our reels were as well as how easy it was to use and maneuver the Cartridge System.

In our previous post, we highlighted some of the great features and benefits of our new Data Center Cabinet that we launched in September of 2011.  Another outstanding feature of our cabinets is the structured cabling system within it. We thought that feature deserved a blog post of its own.

When talking with folks in the IT industry, one of the biggest complaints we heard was the lack of cable management within the cabinets and the headaches associated with dealing with all that cabling.  Sure, it’s great to have a lot of space within a cabinet so that you can accommodate as many cables as you need, but having a bunch of cables with a lack of organization or structure can turn into a nightmare.  OCC’s engineers quickly got to work and developed a cable management system that maximizes space within the cabinet while also keeping all the cables neatly and tightly secured in-place.

Interested in seeing this new cable management system?  You’ll just have to stop by our booth at BICSI’s Winter Conference in Orlando, FL and be one of the first to see our cable management system up-close and personal!