Telecom Business Review Latin America Optical Fiber Monitoring And Management System (Onms)
Ariel Campos, Head of Telecommunications – Engineering Management, TRANSENER
The Optical Fiber Monitoring and Management System (ONMS – OPTICAL NETWORK MANAGEMENT SYSTEM) has been used as a standard within the set of diagnostic tools in all those companies that have an infrastructure (active) fibre optics several hundred kilometres long. It can be used for both OPGW, ADSS and Fiber Optic Cables Subways.
The objective of this article is to present the principle of operation of ONMS Systems and indicate the main advantages of their possible use in an electric energy public service company.
For this, the following will be taken into account in the analysis:
• Traditional methodology for the maintenance of Optical Fibers.
• Typical architecture of an Optical Fiber Monitoring and Management System (ONMS).
ADVANTAGES OF AN ONMS SYSTEM
The ONMS Systems (ONMS – OPTICAL NETWORK MANAGEMENT SYSTEM) allow automation of all measurements on OPGW and ADSS optical fibres; the System automatically measures the attenuation of the optical fibre and sends summaries and alerts of the measurements.
These systems can be parameterized to collect measurement information:
• Measurement of fiber attenuation (db).
• Fiber attenuation coefficient (db/km).
• Attenuation of junction boxes (db).
• Reflections that may exist in optical fibers.
• Cuts that may occur in any optical fiber.
All of these measurements are automated, and such information is then available in the ONMS System Management Software.
MANAGEMENT SOFTWARE ARCHITECTURE
DESCRIPTION OF THE ONMS SYSTEM
There are 2 (two) ways to measure optical fibers with the ONMS System:
• Measurement of optical fibers in service.
• Measurement of dark optical fibers.
MEASUREMENT OF OPTICAL FIBERS IN SERVICE
In order to monitor the quality of the optical cable service, it is possible to adopt the criterion of monitoring all the optical fibers of the cable. This criterion implies that the monitoring process must co-exist with the transmission of useful information on the same fiber.
To monitor the quality of service (QoS) of optical cables, it is also possible to monitor the dark fibers that will not be used for the transmission of useful signals and that are available in the OPGW cable. In this case, it is not necessary to install switches or optical filters 
The great advantage of measuring illuminated fibers is in cases where there are OPGW cables with widely used optical fibers since these ONMS Systems can be installed without having to have dark fibers since they can be used by the company itself. , or with rental contracts with third parties.
MEASUREMENT OF DARK OPTICAL FIBERS
To monitor the quality of service (QoS) of optical cables, it is also possible to monitor the dark fibers that will not be used for the transmission of useful signals and that are available in the OPGW cable. In this case, it is not necessary to install switches or optical filters.
It is a simpler measurement method than the previous one. Consequently, the monitoring system does not interact with the main communications system that uses the illuminated fibers. It has the disadvantage that the OPGW cable must have dark optical fibers available to use as witness fibers for cable measurement.
RESULTS AND CONCLUSIONS
The main advantages of the ONMS System are:
• It quickly detects and locates failures and degradations in optical fibers. IS PREDICTIVE.
• Increases the SLA (Service Level Agreement) since it allows to elaborate statistics, repair times (MTTR).
• Improves the efficiency in OPEX operating expenses of Maintenance Equipment of Communications since the measurements are carried out automatically, it is not necessary to travel to go to measure, you travel only when you have to go to repair. IS EFFICIENT.
• Allows the connection of the Measurement Management Software with the GIS System, thus way when there is a failure or a degradation, they indicate the exact coordinates of the location of the fiber optic fault for more efficient transport to the site and fast.
• All fiber optic medications and statistics can be managed on a software platform available with cloud technologies.
With the installation of an ONMS System, the concept of maintenance of optical fibers changes. We move from the concept of preventive maintenance, or in the event of failures, to a concept of predictive maintenance.
With the concept of predictive maintenance, more strategic asset management can be carried out for utility companies.