How to Calculate Power Margin for Fiber-Optic Cable
After calculating a link's power budget, you can calculate the power margin (P
M
), which represents the
amount of power available after subtracting attenuation or link loss (LL) from the power budget (P
B
). A
worst-case estimate of P
M
assumes maximum LL:
P
M
= P
B
– LL
P
M
greater than zero indicates that the power budget is sufficient to operate the receiver.
Factors that can cause link loss include higher-order mode losses, modal and chromatic dispersion,
connectors, splices, and fiber attenuation. Table 28 on page 82 lists an estimated amount of loss for the
factors used in the following sample calculations. For information about the actual amount of signal loss
caused by equipment and other factors, refer to vendor documentation.
Table 28: Estimated Values for Factors Causing Link Loss
Estimated Link-Loss ValueLink-Loss Factor
Single mode—None
Multimode—0.5 dB
Higher-order mode losses
Single mode—None
Multimode—None, if product of bandwidth and distance is less than
500 MHz-km
Modal and chromatic dispersion
0.5 dBConnector
0.5 dBSplice
Single mode—0.5 dB/km
Multimode—1 dB/km
Fiber attenuation
The following sample calculation for a 2-km-long multimode link with a power budget (P
B
) of 13 dB uses
the estimated values from Table 28 on page 82 to calculate link loss (LL) as the sum of fiber attenuation
(2 km @ 1 dB/km, or 2 dB) and loss for five connectors (0.5 dB per connector, or 2.5 dB) and two splices
(0.5 dB per splice, or 1 dB) as well as higher-order mode losses (0.5 dB). The power margin (P
M
) is calculated
as follows:
P
M
= P
B
– LL
P
M
= 13 dB – 2 km (1 dB/km) – 5 (0.5 dB) – 2 (0.5 dB) – 0.5 dB
P
M
= 13 dB – 2 dB – 2.5 dB – 1 dB – 0.5 dB
82
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