Question about using a media converter to do fiber capture / TAP.

Hello,

I am currently troubleshooting an issue with packets being lost on the wire. We are at the point of losing trust of SPAN port accuracy and looking to split the fiber signal in two for capture.

I am wondering if I can use a PLC splitter on one of the two strands, send that in to an optic in a media converter, and use that to capture to a standard copper port. My concern is that the link may not come up or have issues on the media converter since only one of the two strands will be connected.

If that works, I will probably replicate this setup for each direction, and just use the receive side of the optic.

Thanks!

(If fs links are still not allowed here I will remove all of the links). Part of the difficulty is most of the worlds pre-assembled fiber TAP hardware seems to be made for APC or multimode. We are running UPC duplex single mode.

Here is my plan:

1. Buy a few Bare 1x2 PLC fiber splitters
2. Fusion splice LC UPC OS2 pigtails to each end
3. place all of that in a tray with LC UPC passthrough connections on it.
4. Feed the strand I am using to send data in to the above solution, then have one of the splits go back to our provider and tap the other.
5. Send the second one in to an SFP in a media converter.
6. Send that copper connection to a computer running wireshark for the capture.