Member Avatar for rkruz

I have a 100BaseT Ethernet Router to Ethernet Router link over several miles of fiber using TCP/IP with fixed IP addresses. Nothing in between except fiber and electrical to optical conversion.

What test equipment is recommended to measure Bit Error Rate from Ethernet port on one end to Ethernet Port on the other end? Im used to using paired PRBS generator/receiver gear to measure BER on serial links (such as Fireberd 6000a), but how is this done on a packet based link? Is there other equipment that might provide BER or other measurements of link quality for this point to point link?

Any thoughts appreciated.
Thanks!

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For a point-to-point 100 Mb/s Ethernet over fiber there are two different things you can measure and they need different tools and procedures: the raw physical bit errors on the optical path, and the packet-level behaviour the routers actually see (frame loss, CRC/FCS errors, latency, throughput). is right that dedicated test gear exists but can be expensive, and is also correct that a plain Ethernet port will not give you raw bit-level BER — it reports frame-level counters instead. Decide which metric matters for your use case before buying gear.

If the goal is physical BER and fiber health: use optical-layer test equipment — an optical BER tester (or transceiver-level tester), an optical power meter and loss budget check, and an OTDR to spot splices/breaks. Test procedure: isolate the fiber path (remove active devices), connect TX/RX test units at each end, run a continuous line-rate test long enough to see rare errors, and record BER and power margins. This isolates the fiber and media converters from router behavior.

If the goal is service-level impact: run packet generators or RFC-style tests to measure throughput, frame loss, latency and jitter, and monitor the router interface counters (rx errors, CRCs, drops) or SNMP stats. Low-cost approaches include long-duration iperf/netperf runs at line rate and checking counters before/after. Troubleshooting tips: verify connector cleanliness, confirm transceiver types and power margins, swap known-good SFPs/patches to isolate, and consider renting a BER/OTDR kit or using a test service if you need guaranteed bit-level numbers.

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Member Avatar for cguan_77

hi check out this one from anritsu.. but equipments such as this one is pretty expensive..

Member Avatar for ahihihi...

use analyzers.. measure the raw fiber..

you can't really approach ethernet port errors..

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