OTDR Test

How can you improve event detection with your OTDR tests?

Ever wondered why your OTDR isn’t reliably accurate in detecting all the events on your fiber under test? One reason is that there isn’t just one test configuration that is optimal to characterize a link with a single OTDR shot. If you use an OTDR test pulse that’s too short, you’ll miss seeing events towards the far end of the fiber. If you use the OTDR long pulse, you will see the those far-end events clearly, but might end up missing the splice-point events closer to the near end.

It’s a catch-22.

Most techs end up running multiple tests to characterize the various sections of a fiber link and then have to manually combine them in a result or report. This is a very tedious, manual process and not an ideal workflow. At VIAVI, our OTDR test experts designed a solution called Smart Acquisition (SmartAcq). SmartAcq helps to make sure you are always giving OTDR testing your best shot!

SmartAcq uses differing pulse widths to characterize the different sections of a fiber link and then combines these multiple results into one single view for the user. And it’s all automatic. Once SmartAcq is enabled, it’s just a single button push to run the OTDR test and get a report!

We created the rough illustration below to show how it works. When you have fibers of various lengths (A,B,C in this example), SmartAcq makes sure you hit them all – automatically – with just one shot.

VIAVI OTDR Test with SmartAcq

Field technicians face the task of working on both legacy and next-generation networks. They need to work fast in the field to turn up or troubleshoot high-performance networks, but it’s a challenge to learn every technology and how to deploy it successfully. We address this with test solutions that are easy to use in the field and provide analysis that’s easy to understand (with Smart Link Mapper) and share in the cloud. Altogether, this makes the VIAVI OTDR one of the most accurate and repeatable OTDRs available today … not to mention the most compact and lightweight too.

Not convinced? Try it for yourself, we’ll give you a free 30-day trial license for SmartAcq, simply contact your local Viavi rep or email tac@viavisolutions.com

Read the first post in this fiber test series on Smart Link Mapper

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