Abstract

Fault location in a passive optical network (PON) is difficult because of the large splitting losses, which cannot be overcome by a conventional optical time-domain reflectometer (OTDR).¹ Therefore provisions must be made to access the fibers after the optical splitter. If a clip-on OTDR were available, accessing a fiber through its cladding and coating, there would be no need for installing connectors after the splitter. The present paper demonstrates that such a single-mode clip-on OTDR can be realized by using a clip-on directional coupler and a conventional OTDR.

© 1994 Optical Society of America