Unbalanced or tapered splitter

An unbalanced or tapered splitter in the context of the distributed tap architecture (DTA) refers to a splitter that doesn't split the optical signal equally. Instead, it takes off a smaller portion of the signal for a nearby customer and lets the larger portion continue down the line to serve other customers further away.

For instance, in a typical balanced splitter scenario, you might use a 1:2 splitter that divides the incoming signal evenly between two outputs. In contrast, an unbalanced splitter might take off only 10% (or another smaller percentage) of the signal for a nearby customer and allow the remaining 90% to continue on to serve other customers.

These splitters also introduce new complexity to measure loss as well as in the post-processing of reports.

Check out our flyer around these issues:

Losing your balance with tapered splitters?
Characterize, map and correlate link events automatically on reports to save time on your federally funded projects for rural deployments.