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Optica Publishing Group
  • Optical Fiber Communication Conference and Exposition and The National Fiber Optic Engineers Conference
  • Technical Digest (CD) (Optica Publishing Group, 2005),
  • paper NThC4

Field Measurements of Deployed Fiber

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Abstract

New generations of ultra-long haul (ULH) WDM equipment require detailed engineering design of the fiber links to enable 1500km, and longer reaches, between regenerations or terminations of optical signals. Dispersion compensation, optical power budgets and polarization mode dispersion penalty calculations must be based on actual measured fiber span values to enable these large system reaches. These considerations have led to dark fiber customer interest, as well as internal engineering interest in fiber characterization. Level 3 recently executed field measurements of deployed Corning LEAF® optical fiber cables. More than 70 spans of 90+km average length were studied, with six fibers measured per span. These optical fiber cable spans were deployed in the years 1999, 2000 and early 2001. These measurements included: polarization mode dispersion (PMD) at 1550nm, chromatic dispersion (CD) and dispersion slope in the C band, optical loss at 1550nm and 1625nm, optical time domain reflectometer (OTDR) measurements at 1550nm (including average bi-directional splice loss), and optical return loss. The OTDR measurements were executed using a launch reel. This provided relief from the instrument dead-zone, and thus measurements of the optical reflectivity and loss of the fiber patch panels were also available from the OTDR traces. The PMD was measured three times, consecutively. The largest value is taken as the PMD. Most of the span PMD measurements were fairly consistent (among the three measurements) with most PMD values less than 0.05 ps/√km. The CD was measured every 10nm from 1520 to 1570 nm. Almost all fibers had CD greater than 4 ps/nm-km at 1550nm and most were close to 4.2 ps/nm-km. The reflectivity of the connectors was found to be better than -50dB, in all but a few cases. The insertion loss of the connectors was found to be mostly less than 0.35dB. We will discuss the lessons learned in measuring the loss and reflection at the patch panels. The bi-directional average splice losses were mostly less than 0.05dB. The optical attenuation of the fiber (including splice loss and connector loss) were almost all below 0.225dB/km. These excellent results seen on the Level 3 network will ease the process of implementing ULH WDM systems, and the future 40Gbps systems. We will present detailed statistical summaries of these measurements of the Level 3 fiber network during this talk.

© 2005 Optical Society of America

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