Assessment of radiation-induced loss for AT&T fiber-optic transmission systems in the terrestrial environment

Environmental radiation dose rate estimates are provided for both outdoor terrestrial and indoor environments. Laboratory radiation sensitivity measurements are reported for the AT&T standard single-mode fiber and standard and radiation-hardened multimode fibers. These are used to estimate typical system losses for long-haul, trunk, feeder, local area network, and optical data environments. It is reported that radiation-induced loss is unusually harsh environments can be minimized by using the radiation hardened 62.5/125- mu m multimode fiber, which has sensitivities roughly an order of magnitude lower than the standard product at 0.85 mu m and almost two orders of magnitude lower at 1.3 mu m.<
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