A novel high cost effective 1×7 cylindrical mixing rod plastic optical fiber coupler (CMRC) is proposed. Comparing with conventional tapered mixing rod plastic optical fiber 1×7 coupler (TMRC), 1×7 CMRC using cylindrical plastic optical fiber (POF) as mixing rod instead of tapered POF, thus the high demanding POF tapering process is eliminated and the cost of the coupler is greatly reduced. In order to reduce the crosstalk of 1×7 CMRC introduced by using of cylindrical mixing rod, a U shape optical fiber absorber is placed on the mismatched area on the end face of the mixing rod. Theoretical analysis and experimental measurement indicate that 1×7 CMRC with U shape absorber has a equivalent coupling efficiency as 1×7 TMRC. The measured crosstalk of the 1×7 CMRC with U shape absorber is lower than -40 dB.