This part of IEC 61280-4 is applicable to the measurement of attenuation of installed fibreoptic cabling using multimode fibre, typically in lengths of up to 2 000 m. This cabling can include multimode fibres, connectors, adapters and splices.

Cabling design standards such as ISO/IEC 11801, ISO/IEC 24702 and ISO/IEC 24764 contain specifications for this type of cabling. ISO/IEC 14763-3, which supports these design standards, makes reference to the test methods of this standard.

In this standard, the fibre types that are addressed include category A1a (50/125 mm) and A1b (62,5/125 mm) multimode fibres, as specified in IEC 60793-2-10. The attenuation measurements of the other multimode categories can be made, using the approaches of this standard, but the source conditions for the other categories have not been defined.