Economic reliability testing of fiber optic systems

One method suppliers can use to assure that their fiber optic systems consistently meet the purchaser´s early life reliability requirements at the time of shipment is to do system reliability testing. It is suggested that the amount of reliability testing that is performed by suppliers should be based on minimizing costs. The authors address the problem of simultaneously determining the time on test for each reliability test along with the fraction of systems to test. They also describe a procedure for the reliability test, provide a set of typical test performance parameters, and provide a method for calculating the expected number of failures in the reliability test for comparison with the number of failures observed