Quality fiber optics should ensure low insertion loss and clean connectors to safeguard communications infrastructure
In business school, we heard a story about the CEO of a large manufacturer in the Twin Cities. In his office was a placard that read: “Price, Quality, and Lead Time… Pick Two.” It always made sense to me, because you can’t be all things to all people.
If you look hard enough, you can buy a fiber patch cord for 65 cents. Would you really want to plug a 65-cent patch cord into a transceiver that may cost hundreds — or thousands — of dollars? Probably not. But it happens more than you’d think, and the consequences are real.
The disconnect in network investments
Customers go to great lengths when designing and building an FTTH network. The time, labor and cost are significant. Most FTTH deployments run into the upper hundreds of thousands of dollars, if not millions. Engineers keep a close eye on the price of every product in every segment of the network. Clearfield panels, cabinets, and access products are regularly chosen for their combination of competitive pricing and high quality.
But a disconnect happens when it’s time to connect the active equipment to the network. After all that planning and investment, customers very often reach for the cheapest patch cord available. The typical justification: patch cords are a commodity, and they’re available cheap from dozens of manufacturers.
Here’s the problem with that logic. The network is only as strong as its weakest link. Each connector end face in your network is a potential failure point — especially if it was poorly constructed and never tested to the temperature extremes defined by Telcordia standards. Most bargain products aren’t tested to those standards. Whether they’ll hold up against salt spray, temperature cycling, or other outside plant conditions is anyone’s guess.
Quality beyond the connector end face
Honestly, I don’t want to make the cheapest products on the market. If I did, I couldn’t provide the quality Clearfield is known for. In addition to meeting Telcordia standards, our patch cords offer a range of other benefits.
For starters, we promise 0.2 dB insertion loss (or less) on fiber terminations through the FiberDeep™ guarantee. You won’t find a stronger performance commitment than that. Our patch cords and fiber optic products are built with the same attention to quality and detail as everything else in our portfolio. When it comes to patch cords, not all are created equal — and the FiberDeep guarantee is proof of where Clearfield stands.
Our products are designed to be the strongest part of your network, not the weakest. And every component you purchase from Clearfield comes backed by our expert team of Applications Engineers and Technicians. Try getting that kind of support on a 65-cent patch cord.
Dirty connectors cause network failures
Even with well-made patch cords, a contaminated end face can block light transmission, preventing networks from adding bandwidth and putting revenue opportunities at risk. Standard cleaning tools, such as one-click cleaners, are expensive consumables that techs burn through. If the cleaners aren’t stocked on hand, connectors don’t get cleaned.
Clearfield addresses this with the ClearPass® Connector Cleaning Dust Cap, a built-in cleaning solution that ships standard on all Clearfield SC, FC and ST connectors with 2.5mm ferrules. That includes patch cords and cable assemblies. Rather than relying on a separate consumable, technicians use the dust cap itself to clean the end face before connecting — no additional tools required.
The process takes seconds: peel the foil, click without twisting, and connect. The ClearPass Dust Cap delivers 94.5% cleanliness effectiveness in the field, making it suitable for central office, outside plant and customer premise applications. The result is fewer service disruptions, reduced truck rolls, lower consumables costs — and a better first-pass yield on every install.
Total cost of ownership vs. unit price
The next time you review your costs, consider total cost of ownership (TCO). A few dollars saved per patch cord can quickly be erased by a single truck roll, a service outage, or a warranty claim on a transceiver that failed prematurely. The math rarely favors the bargain bin.
The FiberDeep guarantee and ClearPass Dust Cap capture this principle well. High-quality patch cords reduce costs by cutting the consumables budget, preventing return service calls, and protecting the uptime. That’s the kind of value that compounds across a deployment.
Ready to protect your network from the inside out? Tell Clearfield how we can help.
By Tom Warren
For over 25 years, Tom Warren (CFHP, CFOT) has worked with Clearfield in the world of telecommunications. As a Regional Sales Manager, Tom works with customers in Florida. His expertise includes in-depth knowledge of WDMs, FTTx, Small Cell, and DAS fiber applications.