Development of Novel Optical Fiber Ribbon Assembled into Extremely High-Density Optical Fiber Cable

摘要

This paper proposes an extremely high-density optical fiber cable for access networks that uses novel optical fiber ribbon employing standard 250 μm diameter coated optical fibers. We describe the requirements for these cables and investigate the structural design of the novel optical fiber ribbon taking the issues of cable downsizing and workability into consideration. On the basis of these requirements, we determined the geometry of the optical fiber ribbon and cable needed to achieve stable characteristics, sufficient long-term reliability and workability. We confirmed that the novel optical fiber ribbon, which we call Tollable optical fiber ribbon, had excellent mass splicing workability. Moreover, we manufactured a 200-fiber cable with a fiber density of 2.5 fibers/mm~2 and a cable diameter of 10 mm. We clarified that the transmission, mechanical characteristics and long-term reliability were sufficiently stable for the cable to be used in access networks for FTTH.