Newly developed support system for subscriber optical fiber cable operations

This article describes and evaluates the design and performance of a newly developed support system for subscriber optical fiber cable operations. The former support system, which was capable of automatic remote testing without any interruption in service, was introduced, and could decrease the amount of time for test work during cable construction by 75% and repair time by 50%. In addition to this feature, the new system allows one test controller to be shared by several offices, Moreover, carrier equipment faults are clearly separable from user equipment faults in the test results. Consequently, the application possibilities for the new support system increase along with the precision of identifying faults. Our evaluation of the new system's functions is based upon tests performed on a system prototype assembled specifically for this purpose.