The 2nd Workshop on Specialty Optical Fibers and their Applications (WSOF 2010) will be held in Oaxaca City, México, from October 13 to 15, 2010. WSOF 2010 is a technical workshop and exhibit intended to report on the latest advances and innovations in specialty optical fibers, its applications and associated devices; and serve as a discussion forum by bringing together researchers, academics, manufacturers and students working in the field. The event aims at covering the most up?to?date and diverse fiber types, including microstructured and photonic crystal fibers, non?silica fibers, as well as new directions in fiber devices and sensors. For this edition of the WSOF, we will have a special session on “Specialty Fibers for High Power Fiber Lasers”.

The workshop is jointly organized by the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM) and the Center for Optics Research (CIO). It is co?sponsored by SPIE and OSA. Oaxaca is a beautiful colonial city that has been declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site and is located within one of the most culturally rich states in Mexico. The city is full of colorful colonial houses and cobblestone streets, and offers a vast array of exciting food, cultural and touristic attractions—such as the famous archeological pyramid ruins of Monte Albán and Mitla, as well as many indigenous villages known for their arts and crafts.

Come join us in Oaxaca and share your latest specialty fiber work with your colleagues!

For more information or to submit a paper, please visit: http://www.cio.mx/WSOF2010/index.html

The ETSI TS 105 175-1 Standard for Access, Terminals, Transmission and Multiplexing (ATTM); Plastic Optical Fibre System Specifications for 100 Mbit/s and 1 Gbit/s has now been accepted.

The present document specifies the POF cabling system 100 Mbit/s and 1 Gbit/s for interoperability among different suppliers. The system comprises the active optical elements, the cables, connectors and wall plugs. A future step could be to achieve integration of POF interfaces into end user equipment.

The full standard is available here for download and review. A short excerpt from the introduction is below:

Polymer Optical Fibres (POF) based on Poly-Methyl-Metha-Acrilate (PMMA) with step-index 1mm core diameter (referred to in the rest of the present document as POF) have gained interest in the recent years for their interesting properties compared to the better known glass optical fibres (GOF). The main advantages of POF when compared to GOF are:

1. POF large core diameter (1mm) allows do-it-yourself installation and termination with common cutter and electrician-like low cost tools; besides PMMA material is a very inexpensive material.
   
2. POF high diameter and numerical aperture makes bending loss sensitivity much lower than silica fibre (GOF).
   
3. POF mechanical resilience and elasticity makes it possible to step on it and even tie it. Dust and water harm POF to a much smaller extent than GO
   
4. The optical sources for POF are in the visible range, and the optical launch is usually non-collimated.

There are a number of theories floating around concerning the largest automotive recall by Toyota in history. The sticking of the gas pedal, the conversion from a mechanical to electrical accelerators, floor mats getting caught in the accelerator pedal, electronics and software, computers and electromagnetic interference (EMI). Whatever the problem, it will bring a lot closer monitoring by the regulators than ever before.

It is a fact that the amount of electronics in an automobile is increasing at a fast rate. Auto manufacturers have to scramble to keep up to date with developments in the consumer electronics field. Estimates are that up to 40% of the cost of a car is in the electronics.

In the late 1990’s the European auto manufacturers started to consider the next generation of wiring for “infotainment systems”. They concluded that in order to meet the demands of increased electronics and computers in the auto, the trend to digitalization, and increased levels and sensitivity to EMI, that the transmission media should be optical in a ring architectures. In this way, electrical functions could be electrically isolated from one another.

This resulted in the MOST Standard and by 2009, there were over 70 models of European autos on the road consisting of over 70 million optical nodes. Acceptance of the MOST Standard, however, has been slow by the U.S and Japanese auto manufacturers. The Korean manufactures have just started to install MOST.

It is interesting to note that Toyota went to the MOST Cooperation and recommended a copper based version of MOST. The MOST Corporation agreed to the copper based version if Toyota developed the standard and had it approved by MOST. How many cars in the recall have copper based MOST is not known, however, it is reasonable to expect that the regulators will be looking into aspects of automotive electronics and the interconnection thereof.

The development of the MOST system is covered in the "Plastic Optical Fiber Market & Technology Assessment Study” from Information Gatekeepers. A table of contents of the report can be seen here.

Binghamton, NY – February 24, 2010 - Electronic Links International, Inc. today announces the introduction of two US type wall plates with integrated duplex POF adapters. The first adapter is intended to receive bare Plastic Optical Fiber in the back and then in the front of the wall plate. The second adapter is intended to receive a terminated plug in the back and in the front. The wall plates are offered with single or double adapters. The plugs are also available from ELII and can be field terminated or are available already terminated. In both cases the loss is about 2 dbs and the maximum length is 100 meters. The Optical Fiber has a core diameter of 1 mm with an overall diameter of 2.2 mm.

According to Francesco Liburdi, the Managing Director of the company, “these wall plates should facilitate the direct connection to POF embedded plug less connectors or sockets, mounted on products such as home gateways for fiber-to-the–home networks for home entertainment or similar applications”.

Samples will be available at the upcoming POF Symposium @ OFC/NFOEC 2010

The January 15th issue of IEEE Photonics Letters contains a great POF-related article entitled, "Single-Mode Perfluorinated Polymer Optical Fibers With Refractive Index of 1.34 for Biomedical Applications" and co-authored by Zhou, G. Pun, H-Y. Tam, A.C.L. Wong, C. Lu, P.K.A. Wai of the Photonics Research Centre, The Hong Kong, the Polytechnic University of Yanshan University, Hong Kong, Hebei Province, China.

The full text is available here to Photonics Letters Subscribers. From the abstract:

We demonstrate a technique for the fabrication of single-mode perfluorinated polymer optical fiber (PPOF). The PPOF preform is composed of poly-methyl-methacrylate (PMMA)-based outer cladding and a graded-index multimode PPOF as the core. A photosensitive graded-index single-mode PPOF with a core diameter of about 6.6 $ mu{hbox {m}}$ and cladding diameter of 400 $ mu{hbox {m}}$ was fabricated. The fiber has a cutoff wavelength of 854 nm and exhibits single-mode characteristics at wavelengths of 1310 and 1550 nm. The transmission loss is less than 0.2 dB/m in the wavelength range of 1410–1540 nm and less than 0.5 dB/m for wavelengths up to 1610 nm, significantly less than the typical transmission loss of $sim$100 dB/m for PMMA fiber. Another important feature of the PPOF is its low refractive index of 1.34, close to aqueous solution of biomaterials, permitting strong optical coupling for biomedical applications.

Austin, Texas - February 17, 2010 - Firecomms, a leading supplier of high speed optical components, is pleased to announce today a collaboration with SMC, a specialist in providing high-quality, reliable customer premise equipment to broadband service providers, and NYCE Networks, a leading provider of innovative Plastic Optical Fiber to copper Ethernet products, in which its OptoLock® Plastic Optical Fiber (POF) transceiver will power the first of an innovative product line of POF-based customer premise equipment.

Through the collaboration that will result in accelerated innovation and manufacturing efficiencies within the Plastic Optical Fiber products market, Firecomms will supply OptoLock plugless Fiber Optic Transceivers for SMC’s line of fiber optic products, which are developed by NYCE Networks. The first product in the line, the SMCEPM-2, is an innovative copper to POF media converter switch that allows broadband service providers to quickly and easily create Ethernet POF networks for their residential and business class customers.

“Many of our valued broadband service providers need a copper to fiber product to create a high speed Ethernet network for their residential and business class customers that have outdated wiring and cabling. The SMCEPM-2 enables quick installation of POF networks and is the fastest, easiest, and most inexpensive to deploy,” says Todd Babic, vice president of Sales, Broadband Business Development for SMC. “Our collaboration with Firecomms and NYCE allows us to bring a highly valuable POF product to market quickly to meet our customers’ needs.”

Only millimeters thick, plastic optical fiber is highly durable and flexible, easy to cut, and is much easier to install and conceal than traditional CAT-5/5e/6cabling. POF also is highly immune to cable electrical noise and provides a higher Quality of Service (QoS) than traditional CAT-5/5e/6 electrical cable networks. This means that POF experiences minimal network congestion that is common from bandwidth-intensive applications like VOIP, IPTV, and online gaming.

“These innovative POF devices by SMC and NYCE Networks will enable operators, installers and consumers to connect their IPTV and home networking nodes using a high quality, interference-free link with the simplicity of a home speaker wire connection,” says Firecomms' vice president of sales and marketing for the Americas, Lawrence Thorne. “SMC's reputation within the operator community as a provider of highly reliable, cost effective customer premise equipment further validates the increasing interest in the deployment of POF networking solutions that will enable broadband service providers to guarantee network reliability, reduce subscriber installation costs, and maximize ARPU (average revenue per user).”

Cork, Ireland- February 18, 2010 - Firecomms, a leading developer of high-speed Plastic Optical Fiber (POF) transceivers, is pleased to announce that its OptoLock plugless fiber optic transceiver has been embedded in the first POF-enabled Fiber Termination Unit to offer seamless end-to-end fiber optic networking. Offered by Genexis, the POF-enabled FiberXport® Fiber Termination Unit, which will be shown at the 2010 FTTH Council Europe Conference next week, enables a true end-to-end fiber network by converting the glass fiber network into a plastic optical fiber Ethernet home network.

Genexis new CPE is the first POF-enabled product to provide a seamless fiber-powered home network, says Hugh Hennessy, vice president of sales and marketing for Firecomms. By bridging the gap between glass fiber and an Ethernet home network, this new product based on Firecomms popular OptoLock technology successfully deploys fiber directly to the set top box.

The design of OptoLock enables the fiber to be cut and terminated to the exact required length on site, enabling even the most novice consumer to quickly and easily terminate the bare optical fiber. This means that OptoLock enables all the advantages of optical fiber to be brought into the home with do-it-yourself simplicity and costs. The benefits of this simple, robust high-speed interface will be significant as high-speed services like 100 Mb IPTV are delivered into the home.

Our relationship with Firecomms allows us to bring a highly valuable POF product to the market to meet our customers needs, says Luuk Pals, vice president new business development for Genexis. With its unlimited bandwidth, our POF-enabled CPE is a logical step for Genexis as it gives customers a solid, reliable and very fast in-house infrastructure. This technology prepares our customers for new services like entertainment, healthcare, e-learning, and home automation.

The 2010 FTTH Council Europe Conference will be held on February 24 and 25 in Lisbon, Portugal. The Genexis POF-based Fiber Termination Unit with OptoLock will be shown on stand S28.

Firecomms leads the development of devices to drive POF, a low-cost optical alternative to copper cabling. Due to its ease of use, large core tolerances, and low costs, POF is enjoying substantial growth in home network and point-to-point interconnection. The annual worldwide POF market is estimated to be worth over $2.5 billion in 2011, according to market research by Information Gatekeepers.

Cork, Ireland - January 20, 2010 - Firecomms is pleased to announce that its POF products comply to the new specifications for POF cabling systems and networks recently published by ETSI, the European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI TS 105 175-1, "Plastic Optical Fibre System Specifications for 100 Mbit/s and 1 Gbit/s"). The specification defines system requirements for both Fast- and Gigabit-Ethernet based networks and covers POF cables, connectors and transceivers.

Firecomms' Fast Ethernet transceivers, including OptoLock®, are compliant with the specifications, which enable operators and installers to guarantee network interoperability between POF-based CPE and networking solutions. The company's patented OptoLock plugless transceiver also satisfies the preferred termination technique outlined in the specification. OptoLock's unique design enables the fiber to be cut and terminated to the exact required length on site, so all the advantages of optical fiber can be brought into the home with do-it-yourself simplicity and costs.

"For several years European operators have striven to find the optimum wired in-home network solution," says Angelantonio Gnazzo of Telecom Italia's Home Network and Handset Innovation department. "The publication of this new standard for POF systems paves the way for operators and installers to overcome the disadvantages associated with traditional wired technologies. For example, because POF can be installed in power ducts, it is an ideal solution for residential structured cabling solutions in brownfield sites where it is difficult to use unshielded twisted pair cables."

Firecomms has serviced network operator requirements by working closely with the vendor community to develop the broadest variety of POF-based networking solutions. Moving forward, the publication of a clear specification for POF-based networks will enable any vendor to offer products compliant to these specifications.

"Several European operators are now deploying POF-based networking solutions in the home," says John Lambkin, CTO and joint founder of Firecomms. "The publication of this specification, in which Firecomms participated, validates their vision in recognizing the merits of POF deployment to guarantee network reliability, and reduce installation and customer maintenance costs."

Firecomms leads the development of devices to drive POF, a low-cost optical alternative to copper cabling. Due to its ease of use, large core tolerances, and low costs, POF is enjoying substantial growth in home network and point-to-point interconnection. The annual worldwide POF market is estimated to be worth over $2.5 billion in 2011, according to market research by Information Gatekeepers.