EXFO Electro-Optical Engineering Inc. announced today the launch of the next-generation FTB-5500B Polarization Mode Dispersion (PMD) Analyzer.

This patent-pending PMD Analyzer is the only portable instrument on the market that can sweep through erbium-doped fiber amplifiers (EDFAs), say company representatives, enabling field technicians to characterize PMD levels in an entire optical network with a single touch of a button. Optical links must be measured for PMD, especially when upgrading to transmission rates of 10 Gbits/sec or when deploying a cascade of amplifiers.

The FTB-5500B PMD Analyzer, a test module housed inside the all-in-one, FTB-400 field-testing platform, also provides the most advanced specifications in terms of testing time, measurement sensitivity, and PMD range contends the company. The instrument can characterize an entire link, with a dynamic range above 50 dB and PMD range from 0 to 115 ps, in less than five seconds.

"This product represents a veritable breakthrough because it can be combined with a chromatic dispersion (CD) analyzer inside our PC-centric, Windows-based FTB-400 platform along with a single light source to identify all dispersion issues on fiber links-- even in the presence of optical amplifiers," asserts �tienne Gagnon, director of product management at EXFO.

"Testing through EDFAs is critical in long-haul optical networks and the impact of amplifiers on overall network performance should not be underestimated," he adds. "We have carried out tests on 800-km links delineated by more than 10 amplifiers, and our PMD Analyzer delivered results with the utmost accuracy. This unmatched accuracy and EDFA testing are due to our patent-pending technology that measures minute PMD levels through separate auto- and cross-correlation data."

The FTB-5500B PMD Analyzer will be on display at booth 2341 during OFC 2003 from March 25-27 at the Georgia World Congress Center in Atlanta. For more information about this test instrument, visit EXFO's Web site at www.exfo.com.