Fiber Optics Splicing and Termination
- IDF and MDF room set up for Customer to Network interface.
- Place housings including Modem racks and Power units
- Termination of customer lines as necessary (Cat5, Coax or Fiber) and route to housings
- Fiber splicing (Mechanical and Fusion)
- Fusion splice and test fiber optic lines.
- Power through testing of fiber lines to ensure all splices are within specifications
- Optical time-domain reflectometer (OTDR) testing and documentation
- Splice case entry and set up
Tercom Construction only uses state of the art testing equipment and methodology to ensure that all fiber optic lines are performing up to customer specifications, specifically, optical time-domain reflectometer (OTDR) testing. This method injects a series of optical pulses into the fiber being tested, and extracts light that is scattered or reflected back from points along the fiber. The scattered or reflected light that is gathered back is used to characterize the optical fiber. The strength of the return pulses is measured and integrated as a function of time, and plotted as a function of fiber length.
OTDR is useful for testing the integrity of fiber optic cables. It can verify splice loss, measure length and find faults. The OTDR is also commonly used to create a picture of fiber optic cable when it is newly installed.
Fusion splicing is the most widely used method of splicing, as it provides for the lowest loss and least reflectance, as well as providing the strongest and most reliable joint between two fibers. Tercom also uses mechanical splicing where appropriate.