Fault location technique for in-service branched optical fiber networks

A fault location technique using an optical time-domain reflectometer (OTDR) for branched optical fiber networks is described. The required dynamic range of the OTDR for locating a fiber failure occurring after N-way optical power splitting has been studied. In addition, it has been demonstrated that by using an OTDR operating at 1.65 mu m, it is possible to locate one fiber failure among 16-branched fibers without disrupting the 1.31- mu m and 1.55- mu m services.>