Abstract

Single-mode optical fiber cables which are used to interconnect central offices in large metropolitan areas often contain many fibers, and usually the total span lengths in these installations are relatively short. Over 95% of all interconnected metropolitan central offices in the U.S.A. are <20 km apart. For these and other similar types of installation where many fibers must be spliced and the cable span lengths are short, mass splicing of the fibers is a very important feature, and a mean splice loss of 0.5 dB is often quite adequate for proper system performance.

© 1986 Optical Society of America