Testing Cabling With MPO Connectors – What’s New?

With the wide variety of standards relating to fiber optic cabling, the absence of published standards for testing fiber optic cabling terminated with MPO connectors might come as a surprise. Finally, a technical report (TR), written by this author, is scheduled for a June 2017 publication that provides such testing guidance - it is TR/IEC 61282-15. A technical report provides guidance on a subject but does not have requirements (e.g. no “shalls”) as an international standard or an ANSI/TIA standard would.

Here is a sneak preview of the introduction from TR/IEC 61282-15 MPO testing technical report, paraphrased:

Cabling standards such as IEC 61280-4-1 and IEC 61280-4-2 for multimode and single-mode attenuation measurements, respectively, describe testing simplex or duplex cabling terminated with single-fiber ferrule connectors. TR/IEC 61282-15 has been written to describe testing in the absence of any MPO (multi-fiber) testing standard.

TR/IEC 61282-15 addresses the testing of cabling terminated with multi-fiber connectors (e.g. 12 fibers) of the IEC 61754-7 family related to multi-fiber push on (MPO) and describes the challenges when testing array connectivity. It goes on to describe what is important to measure and why IEC 61280-4-2 and IEC 61280-4-1 cannot be used. TR/IEC 61282-15 also compares the various methods of testing using light sources and power meters, OTDRs, fan-out cords, optical switches, and so on.

Better yet, here is an excerpt from the table of contents listing the variations in test methods:

1. Optical light source
   1. Source with MPO interface
   2. Source with non-MPO interface and fan-out cable
   3. Source with non-MPO interface and optical switch
2. Optical power meter
   1. Meter with MPO interface having multiple detectors
   2. Meter with MPO interface having large area detector
   3. Meter with non-MPO interface and fan-out cable
   4. Meter with non-MPO interface and optical switch
3. OTDR
   1. OTDR with MPO interface
   2. OTDR with non-MPO interface and fan-out cable
   3. OTDR with non-MPO interface and optical switch

TR/IEC 61282-15 was developed in subcommittee 86C, working group 1 and other standards bodies are very interested in adopting this technical report including TIA/TR42 and SC25C.

Once the Technical Report is published, we’ll get into a little more detail on the contents. Stay tuned.