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Executive Summary:
The telecommunication
sector in Pakistan is now moving from the deployment to stabilization
phase. The minds of the technical staff of the telecom operators today
are more occupied about the reliable network operation than the
deployment deadlines. What worries the most is the downtime of the
network elements and its impact on the subsequent service outage.
Service outages result in lost revenues and have direct impact on the
profitability of the operators in an intensely competitive market.
Optical fiber networks
form the backbone of any modern high speed terrestrial communications
network. The optical fibers allow data to be transmitted over very long
distances at extremely high data rates and relatively low operational
costs, making the optical medium the main backhaul in almost all large
networks. With the growth of communications’ infrastructure, the fiber
optic network also evolves, resulting into a dire need for a flexible
and an efficient framework to assist the installation, maintenance, and
repair procedures. To maintain Quality of Service, each fiber needs to
be tested and characterized during installation to assure that the link
meets all optical requirements. After the network is brought-up,
preventive maintenance must be performed regularly to monitor the fibers
for degradation and other performance parameters. Moreover, in the event
of a fiber cut, network degradation, or other physical layer network
problems, quick and efficient troubleshooting must be performed.
In order to
troubleshoot/monitor/characterize the health of an optical network for
minimal downtime, a “GIS based Optical Fiber Network Monitoring and
Management System” had been designed and developed previously that
comprised of Remote Test Units (RTUs), to be deployed at remote nodes of
the terrestrial optical network, and a centrally located Fiber
Management System (FMS) for 24/7 detection and tracking of fiber
degradations. The RTU which primarily is an Optical Time Domain
Reflect-o-meter (OTDR) detects any fault on the fiber network and
communicates with the FMS through a GSM modem allowing constant
monitoring of optical fibers networks’ performance. This process of
automation generally results in lower downtimes, better network
performance and automatic fault discovery due to proactive maintenance.
The current project
intends to indigenously develop an optical time domain reflect-o-meter (OTDR)
suitable for integration in a fiber management solution. The project
activities would focus on cost optimization and research into
performance and functionality enhancements of the previous design. The
project should finally lead towards a well researched design and
development of a cost optimized optical time domain reflect-o-meter.
The key benefits of
this project are:
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Local telecom
industry will have cost effective intelligent network management
solutions due to affordable HW made available through this project.
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System SW and HW
would be made available through an Open Source License with an
option to license for commercial applications.
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Pakistani
software/hardware industry would be able to use this open source
solution to create a viable product for the Pakistan Telecom
Industry, if so desired.
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The project would
provide impetus to applied research and development in the
Intelligent Network Management area, state of the art HW and
firmware design besides providing expertise to student population
pertinent to the needs of the local telecom sector.
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Skill enhancement
of the team involved and developing local expertise in HW design,
signal processing techniques and embedded systems.
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