Test and measurement for fiber optic communications

Fiber optics is now the transmission medium of choice for telephony, CATV and LAN backbones, and looks to be the primary choice for all gigabit networks. New technology is allowing up to 80 GB/s over a pair of singlemode fibers and over 1 GB/s over multimode fiber in premises applications. Fiber amplifiers and externally modulated lasers are reaching very high power levels. Dense wavelength division multiplexing is allowing dozens of individual links to share a single fiber. These and other new technologies are demanding new testing methods and equipment. This presentation will cover the basics of fiber optic testing as well as the new technology requiring advanced test methods. A survey of currently available test equipment and likely future advances are also discussed.