Yup, I have one from AliExpress :-) Only done ~50 splices or so, though, but works really well.

Plus tariff.

One of the achievements in my career I’m lowkey proudest of is sneaking in the rewire of about 45,000 ports on a campus that were split pair after an explicit project to do so was shot down.

> Ugh I don't really blame them there, that's really a dirty hack.

I certainly wouldn't do it today, but using two pair for a connection designed for two pair isn't a dirty hack, it's as designed.

Today, using 4 pair for 1G or more and a small switch on the host side to get more ports is probably a better plan.

Of course, but a splitter in a PON network or a WDM device are perhaps better examples of things that are hacky to model. Multi-fibre cables and splices are another. Netbox is great for some simple applications, and it's fantastic OSS, but in practice falls short for many use cases.

I’m speaking mainly within the context of telecom field splicing - the numbers I mentioned are typical for that application in my experience. You’re only sending on the order of 5 mW down a fiber, so none of those high-power concerns apply. Obviously, different networks have different thresholds: if you’re building a greenfield, low-latency long-haul route, you want to minimize loss and it’s reasonable to spend the extra time and use higher-end equipment. For FTTH, with something like a 30 dB overall budget, nobody really cares whether a splice is 0.03 dB or 0.1 dB.