By Dennis Mazaris, President & Founder, Concert Technologies Published in Communications News

The TR 41.8.1 committee – maker of the well-known TIA/EIA-586-A standard for commercial cabling systems – polled its voting members last November to select finalists from five manufacturer entrants: AMP/Siecor, IBM/Siecor, Lucent Technologies, 3M, and Panduit. At stake is the standard for the new duplex fiber-optic connector.

The new connector is designed to have the footprint of an RJ-45 connector. Obviously, with space being at a premium in any telecommunication situation – from NIC cards to patch panels – this solution was important enough for five different manufacturers to commit considerable resources for development.

In a prior meeting, ground rules were agreed upon. Each voting member could vote on from one to all five connectors if they so chose. All connectors with 50% or more of the votes were brought forward to the next round in February 1998.

The conventional wisdom of most members, prior to the vote, was that out of the five different connectors, at least three connector manufacturers would capture the 50% or more votes necessary to proceed to the final round.

But something totally unexpected occurred. Overwhelmingly, voting members selected the AMP/Siecor (MT-RJ connector), thus eliminating the rest of the manufacturers in the preliminary round! This did not go down without a fight.

As big a decision as this was for the committee, the real surprise of the day was the challenge to the integrity of the standards process itself.

I won't go into details of the 1.5 hour debate concerning disgruntled manufacturers' comments on the selection process. In the end, the voting membership of the committee "spoke with their vote." The AMP/Siecor (MT-RJ connector) was a clear winner.

In the final round, the MT-RJ connector is up against the SC connector, which is already in the TIA/EIA-586-A standard. The MT-RJ does not have to replace the existing SC standard connector with which corporations are familiar With this new technology and the all-around cost savings available in connectors, NIC cards, hub boards, and labor-savings to the installers, it only makes sense to add this connector to the standard.

Let's just hope that corporate rivalry does not get in the way of presenting a best solution to the industry.

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