Patent ID: 8485737

Claim:
A telecommunications system, comprising: a trunk cable comprising at least four optical fibers and terminals at opposite ends of the fibers, the terminals including a plurality of ports arranged in a row, each of the optical fibers of the trunk cable being associated with a respective one of the trunk terminal ports; and two transition devices, each of the transition devices comprising: a first set of at least four of optical fibers, each of the optical fibers of the first set having a trunk end and a transceiver end; a single trunk end terminal having a plurality of trunk ports, each port connected with a respective one of the first set of optical fibers at its trunk end, wherein a first axis of symmetry divides the ports; and a plurality of transceiver end terminals, each of the transceiver end terminals having even numbers of transceiver ports, each of the transceiver ports connected with a respective one of the first set of optical fibers at their transceiver ends; wherein the fibers of the first set received by each transceiver end terminal meet either of the following two conditions: (a) wherein a first fiber of the first set originates from a first port in the trunk end terminal, and a second fiber of the first set originates from a second port in the trunk end terminal that is positioned at the mirror image location of the first port about the first axis of symmetry; or (b) each fiber of the first set is received in a first transceiver end terminal that has a corresponding second transceiver end terminal with the same number and arrangement of transceiver ports, and each fiber of the first set received in the first transceiver end terminal originates from a port in the trunk end terminal that has a mirror image port about the first axis of symmetry from which a fiber of the first set that is received in the second transceiver end terminal originates; wherein the transition devices are connected to the opposite ends of the trunk cable such that the ports of the trunk cable terminals are aligned with the ports of the transition device trunk end terminals; further comprising transceivers connected to the transceiver end terminals on opposite ends of the system, wherein the two transition devices are substantially identical.