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Real World, Real Fibers
After testing the "speeds and feeds" of each device, we took the products to the Main Distribution Frame (MDF) at our University of Wisconsin campus lab. We connected each device to two dark fiber pairs. Our goal was to verify that Gigabit Ethernet is ready for campus deployment.

According to campus records, the lab's fibers were installed in 1991 by AT&T, are type 3DHX and have a rated bandwidth of 200 MHz-km at 850 nm. Using a Fluke CertiFiber Fiber Optic tester, we measured the distance of the fiber runs as 262 meters. All of the products we tested passed packets over our fiber infrastructure without corruption. We used Netcom Systems' Smartbits to pass 10-gigabit bursts of traffic over the links. Traffic was injected via 100-Mbps Ethernet interfaces and traversed the

Gigabit Ethernet uplinks to the far side of the network, where a second Smartbits counted received frames. This test measured the device's ability to aggregate traffic over a gigabit link. If the device supported link aggregation, we tested throughput with this feature turned on, using two pairs of fiber and offering twice as much data. All products operated successfully on our real-world fibers. The results of these tests can be found in the online version of this review at www.networkcomputing.com/ 914/914r1.html.