Fiber Optic Splitter or WDM?

As a beginner, it is always confused by Fiber optic splitter and WDM. It looks similar, but actually it is totally different thing.

Definition:

Fiber Optic Splitter: It is an integrated waveguide optic power distribution device that can split an incident light beam into two or more light beams, and vice versa, containing multiple input and out ends.

WDM:  Wavelength Division Multiplexing(WDM) is a fiber optic transmission technique that enables the use of multiple light wavelengths(or colors) to send data over the same medium. It includes: CWDM, DWDM, MWDM, LWDM.

Working principle:

Fiber Optic Splitter is about sharing a single signal between multiple users;

Due to the rapid growth in telecommunication links, high capacity and faster data transmission rates over farther distances are required. WDM is the right technology to increase capacity on a single fiber(long-haul or DCI). With WDM we can transmit more than one high speed digital data stream on a single optical fiber.

Applications:

Fiber optic splitter:  It is generally used to split the optical signal between the optical line terminal OLT and the optical network terminal ONU of the passive optical network.

WDM: 5G Fronthaul, Oil and Gas, Industry, Power, Mining, cable TV, FTTx, Passive Optical Network.