Method of characterising one or more properties of optical fibres

A method of characterising one or more properties of optical fibres obtained from an optical preform, characterized in that the method comprises the following steps:

• i) drawing an optical fibre from the optical preform,
• ii) subdividing the optical fibre from step i) into separate length portions by winding each of said separate length portions on a coil,
• iii) encoding each coil from step ii), with each coil comprising a specific length portion of the original optical fibre from step i),
• iv) measuring one or more properties of a length portion of an optical fibre whose code as registered in step iii) is known,
• v) measuring one or more properties of a random length portion of an optical fibre other than the length portion from step iv), whose code as registered in step iii) is known,
• vi) determining one or more properties of one or more of the length portions of optical fibres other than the length portions measured in accordance with steps iv) and v) through mathematical processing of the measuring results obtained in step iv) and the measuring results obtained in step v), and
• vii) assigning properties to said other length portions from step vi) on the basis of the mathematically processed measuring data.