Bicc Public Limited Company

Bicc Plc

The Secretary of State for Trade and Industry

Neil Richard Haigh

Charles Edward Jones

Michael Matthew Murphy

Optical network with wavelength-dependent routing

Monitoring of an optical line

Apparatus (2) for verifying the performance of optical fibre measurement equipment, comprising a housing (4), a length of optical fibre (6) in a main storage compartment (8), a first compartment (10) containing a first end (12) of the optical fibre (6) that is in the main storage compartment (8), and a second compartment (14) containing a second end (16) of the optical fibre (6) that is in the main storage compartment (8), the optical fibre (6) being stored under substantially zero tension, the first end (12) of the optical fibre (6) being a source end of the optical fibre (6), and the second end (16) of the optical fibre (6) being a detector end of the optical fibre (6).

Apparatus for verifying the performance of optical fibre measurement

Signal attenuation caused by a coating on an optical fibre is measured by feeding a length of the coated optical fibre into an integrating sphere assembly, forming within that part of the fibre within the sphere a loop of such a diameter that there is no risk of macrobending of the fibre and feeding the optical fibre out of the sphere to a detector. Light from a source is transmitted through the fibre and the power of the transmitted signal is continuously detected. The diameter of the loop is gradually decreased to cause macrobending of the fibre F and the strength of the light radiated through the coating by the macrobend in the fibre and collected and integrated by the sphere is monitored. The attenuation by the coating of the transmitted signal is determined from the discrepancy between the reduction of power of the transmitted signal and the increase in strength of the light radiated through the coating by the macrobend.

Optical fibre measurement

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Eastham, United Kingdom

Neil Richard Haigh