China Telecom Tests FTTx With eOTDR

China Telecom and Huawei carry out world's first Embedded OTDR field tests.

February 12, 2014

2 Min Read

URUMQI, China -- Huawei, a leading global information and communications technology (ICT) solutions provider, today announced the completion of world's first Embedded OTDR (eOTDR) commercial use tests on Xinjiang branch of China Telecom's live network, the tests have validated eOTDR test and diagnosis function for optic fiber, and will speed up the commercialization process of eOTDR.

When China Telecom deployed their large-scale FTTx networks, they faced significant fiber maintenance issues, including fiber cuts caused by construction or rodent damage, and detached and dirty connectors. China Telecom dispatched engineers into the field to analyze and locate faults on site. They attempted to locate the faults on a span by span basis, but this was a slow and inefficient process. China Telecom was in urgent need of a testing and diagnosis system to locate and demarcate faults and to simplify operations and maintenance. In addition, the system needed to proactively report alarms in the event of any deterioration in optical network performance, so the O&M engineers could promptly repair and improve the network.

An optical time domain reflectometer (OTDR), uses scattered and reflected light to measure transmission quality along optical fibers, and is primarily used for fiber testing and troubleshooting. Huawei's eOTDR(Embedded OTDR) is an OTDR system embedded in an OLT PON optical module, is compatible with the Line Assurance System iManager N2510, and can effectively identify physical connections and optical fiber attenuation. OTDR-embedded optical modules are the same size as standard optical modules and can be easily deployed on an FTTx network to assist with troubleshooting. This technique does not require serious network reconstruction, such as fiber connection modifications or optical network terminal (ONT) adjustment, nor does it interrupt services during the troubleshooting process. This technique effectively improves fiber troubleshooting efficiency and reduces management costs, and was therefore an ideal solution for China Telecom's FTTx network fiber testing and maintenance.

China Telecom implemented Huawei's iManager N2510/eOTDR solution and completed testing across their entire live network. The test results demonstrated that this solution can locate all backbone fiber faults and the majority of branch fiber faults, work with a fiber Bragg grating (FBG) to demarcate faults and effectively reduce 40% O&M field engineer workload. Moreover, once ODN construction is completed, this solution can test fiber quality and maintain quality data, report alarms in the event of quality deterioration by implementing periodic testing and facilitate rapid response troubleshooting to reduce compliant and improve customer satisfaction. China Telecom has endorsed the test results.

At the end of 2013, Huawei's SingleFAN solution was serving one third of the world's broadband subscribers, its Line Assurance System iManager N2510 was serving more than 50 operators. According to leading consulting firms, including Infonetics, Ovum, and Broadbandtrends, Huawei's SingleFAN portfolio has topped the global PON and digital subscriber line (DSL) markets for several years consecutively.

Huawei Technologies Co. Ltd.

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