A Novel Undersea Cable Design with Plastic Loose Tube, Low Excess Fiber Length, and Fixed Fiber Termination for Bend Sensitive Fibers

摘要

This paper presents a design for an undersea optical cable that successfully resolves the attenuation issues of highly bend sensitive fibers with large mode field diameter used in ultra-high speed broadband transmission. To meet the requirements of the rigorous environment of an undersea cable system, this new design combines a loose tube with low fiber excess length, and uses a new technique of fiber termination in a cable splice box. The result of this approach minimizes the microbending of the fiber in the cable and reduces local accumulation of fiber along the cable and near a splice box. Plastic loose tube is utilized in this design, which provides an economical protection to the fibers in a traditional cable structure. The design of the fiber termination in the splice box demonstrates that the fibers can be terminated firmly without significant attenuation change.