Eye protection in DWDM systems -- what threshold?

[joelja at bogus.com (Joel Jaeggli)]

There are erbium doped raman lasers with output of up to 10 watts
continuous wave, they are (obviously) class 4 devices and are considered
hazardous.

3r and 3b emitters shouldn't be directly exposed to the eye, and carry
an appropriate warnings.  the 10-80km stuff should all be 1 or 1m and
does't merit the yellow triangle.

Deepak Jain wrote:
> At what power level do DWDM systems become dangerous to work near (i.e. not staring into any optics, using light meters, etc)? I never see technicians on inside DWDM systems using eye protection, but I see power levels of amps going higher and higher. On a recent meter I saw almost .6mW... 
> 
> Any pointers to a document saying 1550nm becomes dangerous at xxxx dbM?
> 
> Thanks in advance,
> 
> DJ