Trends in Optical Span Loss Detected Using the Time Series Decomposition Method
Trends in Optical Span Loss Detected Using the Time Series Decomposition Method
Yameogo, Banti Laure M. and Charlton, Douglas W. and Doucet, David and Desrosiers, Christian and O’Sullivan, Maurice and Tremblay, Christine
Journal of Lightwave Technology 2020
Abstract : Optical fiber cables deployed in the last 30 years have been considered to be long-lived components due to the generally high level of reliability of glass and the robustness of cable construction. Like all other components however, optical cables can change with age as a result of their construction or deployment characteristics as well as operational and environmental stress factors. In this article, we apply a time-series decomposition method on span loss data collected during 12 months in four bidirectional spans of a production network in order to detect long-term degradation of the fiber plant. After extracting the trend component, a Mann-Kendall test is applied to the span loss curves and a Sen’s slope estimator test is used for determining the magnitude of span loss change. The method allows detecting a 1.3% increase in span loss over the 12-month period of observation in one of the fiber spans. This trend is confirmed using a linear regression model computed according to Theil Sen method applied to additional one-year data. The proposed method can allow the early detection of fiber plant degradation and the proactive planning of fiber replacement.
