Abstract

The first long-wavelength laser fiber system in North America was placed in regular telephone service between Woodbridge and Triangle (in Virginia) in Sept. 1981. The route distance between offices is about 17 km (10.5 miles) with no repeaters required outside the offices. This six-fiber cable carried one DS-3 initially with one additional DS-3 added later, and a third DS-3 will be needed soon. The average measured end-to-end attenuation divided by the 17-km route distance is ~1.63 dB/km. The results after more than one year in service have been excellent. The only outage was a brief one due to human error shortly after the cutover. Performance has been excellent. The error rate is too low to measure.

© 1983 Optical Society of America