Present Status of Mechanical Connectors for Optical Fiber

Trunk transmission network systems connecting exchange offices were the first transmission systems using optical fiber cables. Subscriber network systems connecting the exchange office with each subscriber including local area networks or CATV network systems are under development at present. Two main techniques are newly required to be developed for making optical fiber mechanical connectors for optical fiber subscriber network system realization. The first is to realize a new connector with a high return loss and a low connecting loss. The second is to cut the joining cost of optical fibers. The newly developed "optical contact connector" realized a high return loss of more than 25 dB and a low connecting loss of 0.15 dB average value. A newly developed "multifiber connector" which can connect many optical fibers at the same time can save time and space for joining fiber cables, and also a "plastic molding technique" can save the cost of the connector. The performance of all these connectors is the same as that of the "optical contact connector." This paper describes the present status of the technique to obtain a high return loss connector, a multifiber connector, and a plastic molded connector for the subscriber network system.