GLOSSARY

Absorption: A form of optical attenuation in which optical energy is converted into an alternative form, often heat. Often caused by impurities in the fiber; hydroxyl absorption is the best-known form.
Acceptance Angle: The critical angle within which incident light is totally internally reflected inside the core of an optical fiber.
Add-Drop Multiplexer (ADM): A device used in SONET and SDH systems that has the capability to add and remove signal components without having to demultiplex the entire transmitted transmission stream, a significant advantage over legacy multiplexing systems such as DS3.
Aerial Plant: Transmission equipment (including media, amplifiers, splice cases, and so on) that is suspended in the air between poles.
Amplifier: A device that increases the transmitted power of a signal. Amplifiers are typically spaced at carefully selected intervals along a transmission span.
Amplitude Modulation: A signal encoding technique in which the amplitude of the carrier is modified according to the behavior of the signal that it is transporting.
Analog: A signal that is continuously varying in time. Functionally, analog is the opposite of digital.
Angular misalignment: The reason for loss that occurs at the fiber ingress point. If the light source is improperly aligned with the fiber s core, some of the incident light will be lost, leading to reduced signal strength.
Armor: The rigid protective coating on some fiber cables that protects them from crushing and from chewing by rodents.
Application-Specific Integrated Circuit (ASIC): A specially...

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Sonet/SDH Demystified

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