Fiber plant manager: an OTDR- and OTM-based PON monitoring system

Wider deployment of fiber in the last mile is driven by increased customer needs for high capacity communication. This deployment requires solutions that reduce the operators' OPEX. A cost-efficient fully reliable and accurate monitoring solution supporting fault detection, identification, and localization in different fiber access topologies will be a key part of such solutions. In this article, we discuss practical requirements for a successful PON monitoring technique followed by an overview of published proposals. We also present a method to monitor power-splitter- and wavelength-splitter-based PON, through combined techniques of OTDR and OTM. The method is non-invasive to data traffic flow and requires no additional functionality (hardware or software) at the ONT side. The description of the overall architecture and components is followed by measurement results.