Lightwave measurement and characterization in passive optical network (PON)

The objective of this study is to determine and troubleshoot the problems of using handheld optical power meter and optical time domain reflectometer (OTDR) for monitoring and troubleshooting a conventional passive optical network (PON) equipped with optical splitter/coupler that used to broadcast optical signals from one fiber to many fibers. This paper proposes an appreciate approach to overcome these testing challenges. In this enhancement, a commercially available OTDR is located at central office (CO) and a tapper circuit is designed to allow the OTDR testing signal to bypass the optical splitter/coupler in a conventional PON when emitted from CO towards customer sites for centralized monitoring in downstream direction. This provides a faster, simpler, and less complex way for installation testing, service activation testing, and network performance monitoring and in-service troubleshooting a PON.