Why No Use PLC Splitter in Cable Connection Network?

As one of the most important components in PON system, fiber optic splitter, like PLC splitter has been gaining in popularity. PLC (planar light-wave circuit) splitter is a kind of waveguide optical power distribution device integration based on a quartz substrate plate. It allows a strand of fiber optic signal being equivalently splitted into several strands of optical signal, which can support a single network interface to be shared by many subscribers. PLC splitter plays an essential role in passive optical network, especially in EPON, GPON, BPON, connecting central office and terminal equipment (the picture below shows a PLC splitter connected with LC LC fiber patch cord). The following text will deal with the question why we need PLC splitter and then provides several PLC splitters for you references.

Why We Need PLC Splitter in Cable Connection Network?

PLC splitter, based on planar light wave circuit technology, has been increasingly needed on the market. The following reasons explain why we need it.

• PLC splitter, a micro-optical components product, using lithography, the semiconductor substrate in the medium and the formation of optical waveguide, can achieve branch distribution function. That is to say, PLC splitter can integrate multiple functions onto a single chip to reduce size and cost.
• PLC splitter can work on wider operating wavelengths (typically PLC splitter works on 1260nm-1620nm wavelength), while FBT only works on three different operating wavelengths, so that PLC splitter can meet the transmission requirements of different wavelengths. Besides, it has low insertion loss, low polarization dependent loss (PDL) and excellent uniformity.
• The compact structure and smaller size make it possible for PLC splitter to be installed directly in a variety of transferring box, without specially designed to stay out of installation space.

Several Most Commonly Used PLC Splitter

PLC splitter can be built using a variety of single-mode fiber patch cables and multimode optical fibers terminated with most connector types for various applications. The following part will list several commonly used PLC splitter in different package form factors for your references during PLC splitter selection.

Bare PLC Splitter

Bare PLC splitter is the elementary component for fiber split, with no connector at either end. It is a kind of ODN products suitable for PON network that can be installed in the pigtail cassette, test instrument and WDM system, which minimizes the space occupation. It is relatively fragile on fiber protection and needs a complete protection design on carrying box body and device (see a picture of bare PLC splitter).

Blockless PLC splitter

Blockless PLC splitter has almost the same appearance as bare PLC splitter, except that blockless PLC splitter has a more compact stainless tube package which provides stronger fiber protection than bare PLC splitter and its fiber ends are all terminated with fiber optic connectors. Blockless PLC splitter is mainly used for various connection over distribution boxes or network cabinets (see an image of blockless PLC splitter).

Fanout PLC Splitter

Fanout PLC splitter is mainly used for 0.9mm optical fiber where the ribbon fiber can be converted to 0.9mm optical fiber through fan-out technology. Fiber adapters can bee provided both for the input and output ends of this kind of splitters. Thus, this splitter can be used directly to meet the low demand on the size of the splitter, for instance all kinds of precision splitter insertion box and splitter wall-mouted cabinets (see a picture of fanout PLC splitter).

Summary

PLC splitter has already become the first choice of OLT and ONU connection for PON network, and so many package types of PLC splitters have been launched on the market to satisfy all kinds of application requirements. So why don’t you use it right now? FS.COM provides PLC splitter featuring low PDL, low excess loss and insertion loss. Our PLC splitters are with various kinds of fiber connectors and fiber patch cord lengths to meet your demand. Besides, we also offer various high-quality patch cords, like SC to LC fiber patch cable, etc. If you have any need, please visit FS.COM.

High Density MPO/MTP Fiber Patch Cable in Data Center

With the advent and popularity of cloud computing and big data, the demand for high-speed transmission and data capacity is becoming much greater than ever before. In the meanwhile, as the data throughput increases, 40G and 100G are more commonplace and now become a hotspot for data center cabling system, plus the fact that MPO/MTP connector is the up-and-coming standard optical interface for 40G and 100G Ethernet network. In the following part, I will introduce two high-density MPO/MTP fiber cables types—MPO/MTP trunk cable and MPO/MTP harness cable, one by one.

MPO/MTP Connectors

Before the introduction to MPO/MTP fiber cable, we still have to review some knowledge about MPO/MTP connectors.

MPO connectors (multi-fiber push on) is used to connect or cross-connect equipment and cables with minimum attenuation and reflection. It is a multi-fiber connector which is standardized within the international regulatory framework (the ICE 61754-7 standard) and also the U.S. (TIA-604-5 standard). MTP (multi-fiber termination push on) connectors are fully compatible with all MPO connectors standards, regulations, and requirements; however, they also have a number of other features that most generic MPO connectors do not possess. For example, MTP connectors have a removable housing allowing users to rework, re-polish, and scan the ferrule, as well as change the gender, even after assembly or in the field. Here shows a picture of MPO/MTP connectors.

High Density MPO/MTP Fiber Cable

Unlike standard fiber optic patch cords (SC patch cable with maximum rate of 10Gbps) a patch cable terminated with the customers’ choice of 12-fiber or 24-fiber MPO connectors can be applied for 40G, or even 100G Ethernet network. Available in a male-to-male version (with guide pins) and a female-to-female version (without pins), MPO/MTP fiber cables can be used for a wide variety of applications, such as backbones, warehouse, disaster recovery, building fiber optic distribution, and so on. The following part will introduce two commonly used high density MPO/MTP fiber cables respectively—MPO/MTP trunk cable and MPO/MTP harness cable.

MPO/MTP Trunk Cable—MPO/MTP trunk cables, terminated with MPO/MTP connectors at both ends, are typically 12 to 144 fibers and create the permanent fiber links between panels in a structured environment. For example, a 72-fiber trunk cable can be terminated with 6 MPO/MTP connectors (shown in the following picture) and the connectors are manufactured specifically for multi-fiber loose tube or ribbon cable. The MTP/MPO trunk cables, which are constructed from loose tube and gel-filled indoor/outdoor rated cables, are applied to interconnect cassettes, panels or ruggedized MPO/MTP fan-outs, spanning MDA, HAD and EDA zones, or other high fiber environments reducing network installation and reconfiguration. Besides, they offer the flexibility which means that if we need change the connector style in the patch panels, new cassettes might be installed with the new connector style on the cross-connect side of the patch panel, but the connector style on the trunk cable won’t have to be changed. What’s more, MTP/MPO trunk cables greatly reduce the installation and maintenance costs with their efficient plug and play architecture.

MPO/MTP Harness Cable—MPO/MTP harness cable, also named MPO/MTP fan-out cable or MTP/MPO break cable, is terminated with a male/female MTP connector on one side and several duplex LC/SC connectors on the other side, providing a transmission from multi-fiber cables to individual fibers or duplex connectors. There are three commonly used MPO/MTP fiber cables types—MPO/MTP to MPO/MTP harness cable, MPO/MTP to secure keyed LC harness cable and MPO/MTP to standard LC harness cable. Compared to normal LC fiber optic cable, these cables are designed for high density applications which require high performance and fast installation. MTP/MPO harness cables are ideal for interconnecting MTP cassettes, panels or backbone MTP assemblies with the active equipment, saving costly data center rack space and easing fiber management. An image of MPO/MTP harness cable is listed below.

Conclusion

MPO/MTP cables are generally used for 40G or 100G network environment, and they play a significant part in structured cabling. It is predicated that MPO/MTP cables will eventually replace the standard for fiber optics. Whether this prediction will come true or not, no one can deny that MPO/MTP assemblies are absolutely best solutions for high-density deployment.

Things You Should Know About BiDi SFP Modules

For the past few years, SFP transceiver modules have received much attention and widely used in telecommunication or communications applications. It is known that almost all modern SFP modules use two fibers to transmit data. One is to receive data from networking equipment, and the other is to transmit data to the networking equipment. However, in recent years, a new type of SFP transceiver is available—Bi-Directional SFP (BiDi SFP) transceiver, which can both transmit and receive data to/from interconnected equipment through a single optical fiber. This post tends to introduce BiDi SFP from the perspectives of definition, working principle, and differences from common SFP modules.

What Is BiDi SFP?

BiDi SFP transceiver is a compact optical transceiver module which uses WDM (wavelength division multiplexing) technology and is compliant with the SFP multi-source agreement (MSA). It is specially designed for the high performance integrated duplex data link over a single optical fiber. BiDi SFP interfaces a network device mother board (for a switch, router or similar device) to a fiber optic or unshielded twisted pair networking cable. Nowadays, it is one of the most popular industry formats supported by many fiber optic component vendors. Here is a Cisco BiDi SFP produced by FS.COM.

Working Principle of BiDi SFP

Compared to traditional SFP transceiver, BiDi SFP are deployed in matched pairs. One for the upstream (“U”) direction, and the other for the downstream (“D”), each part is transmitting at a different wavelength. We could get intuitive understanding of how BiDi SFP works from the image below. The two wavelengths utilized in this example are 1310 nm and 1550 nm. (1310 nm/1550 nm or 1550 nm/1310 nm are commonly used wavelengths in BiDi SFP). Typically, the upstream or “U” transmits at the shorter of the two wavelength—1310 nm, while the downstream or “D” the longer wavelength—1550 nm.

Main Differences Between BiDi SFP and Traditional SFP

The primary difference between BiDi SFP and traditional two-fiber SFP transceiver is that BiDi SFP is fitted with wavelength division multiplexing (WDM) couplers, also known as diplexer, which combine and separate data transmitted over a single fiber based on the wavelengths of the light. That’s why BiDi SFP has only one port, while the traditional SFP module is generally with two ports. One is TX for the transmitting port, and the other is RX for receiving port. The following picture shows different port structures of common Cisco SFP and BiDi SFP.

Another difference between common SFP and BiDi SFP is upon optical sub-assemblies, major cost components of a fiber optic transceiver. As we all know, a common SFP usually has two optical sub-assemblies—the transmitter optical sub-assembly (TOSA) and the receiver optical sub-assembly (ROSA), but BiDi SFP only contains one optical sub-assemblies—BOSA (bi-directional optical sub-assembly), which acts the role of TOSA and ROSA, but with different working principle.

Applications of BiDi SFP

At present, the BiDi SFP is usually used in FTTx deployment P2P (point to point) connection. For example, in a FTTH deployment, optical fibers are used directly to connect the central office and the customer premises equipment. But because the use of P2P architecture, the customer premises equipment has to be connected to the central office on a dedicated fiber. Thanks to BiDi SFP, which allows a bi-directional communication on a single fiber by using wavelength division multiplexing (WDM), the connection between central office and customer premises equipment becomes more simple. Besides this application, BiDi SFP can be also applied in WDM fast Ethernet links, metropolitan area network, and inter-system communication between servers, switches, routers, OADM, etc.

Conclusion

BiDi SFP breaks the rules of traditional SFP modules in many aspects, which have been discussed in the above part. After reading this article, we could get some understanding of BiDi SFP including its definition, working principle and differences from traditional SFP modules. The biggest valuable advantage of BiDi SFP is that it can save cost on optical fiber, especially in long-haul fiber optic transmission. And believe it or not, with the development of technology, it will have broad market prospect.

Why Should We Use Compatible SFP and SFP+?

Nowadays, Fiber optic transceiver is popular with people around the world, especially the SFP and SFP+ transceivers which are the most widely used modules for both telecommunication and data communications applications. They have small sizes and are available with various types, that allows users to select the appropriate one to provide the required optical reach over single-mode fiber or multimode fiber. Since they are of great importance in the network, manufacturers have designed various types of SFP and SFP+ modules to satisfy different demands, including compatible SFP and SFP+ transceivers. Nowadays people are apt to use the compatible SFP/SFP+ transceivers instead of the original ones, do you know the reasons of this? This passage tends to talk about this subject and gives you a basic understanding of compatible SFP and SFP+ modules.

Think twice Before Choosing SFP and SFP+ Transceivers

 

When you need a new SFP or SFP+ transceivers, you should take manufacturer compatible modules into consideration. For example, if you saw a manufacturer SFP or SFP+ modules side-by-side with a first-party OEM modules without the label, I bet that you probably wouldn’t be able to tell the difference between them. Because they are essentially the same, that is to say that the first-party compatible SFP or SFP+ transceivers contain the same opto-electronics and is provided by the same distributors as the higher-priced SFP or SFP+ modules you would buy from companies, like Cisco, Finisar or Brocade, etc.

 

Why Should We Use Compatible SFP and SFP+?

 

When we purchase products, we’ll take many aspects into consideration, such as the price, functions, capability, etc. The following part lists two main reasons why we choose compatible SFP and SFP+.

Cost

With the basic information we have talked about SFP and SFP+ above, there is no doubt that SFP and SFP+ are indispensable components in network communication, but it is really a headache that costs for transceiver modules are keeping rising for users. If you choose Cisco, Finisar, and Dell or any other brands of transceivers, you will find that they are too expensive for us, especially for those who are deficient in capital. However, on the market, compatible SFP and SFP+ are at least the half price of the original one. For example, a Cisco SFP-10G-SR compatible 10GBase-SR SFP+ transceiver is only 16 dollars.

 

Compatibility

As we all know, each transceiver module is unique and holds its own information in EEPROM, so do SFP and SFP+ transceivers. And this memory is coded with specific identifiers such as pert numbers and manufacturer details. When the module is installed, the host device then checks the memory for the correct information to confirm compatibility. Compatible SFP and SFP+ contain the same production technology as the original brands. In other words, they have the same hardware. Take Finisar SFP as an example, a Finisar FTLF1318P2BTL is compatible with the original Finisar SFP transceiver, having all the same features as the original one does, and it is also supported on a wide range of Finisar equipment.

 

Conclusion

 

With increasing demand for transceivers, compatible SFP and SFP+ with lower cost and high compatibility are absolutely perfect choices for most users. But keep in mind that you should have a firmware check for compatibility before installing, or the modules can’t work in good condition. FS.COM always strives to provide optical products and has earned a good reputation among our customers. You could find all kinds of transceivers here, such as 10G SFP+, 100Base SFP, XFP, and so on. And we offer varieties of SFP and SFP+ transceivers which are fully compatible with major brands at very lower price. In addition, we promise every compatible product here is individually tested, walks through the testing challenges and 100% compatibility.

Guide to SFP Transceiver for Gigabit Ethernet

In today’s society, optical communication products are almost everywhere and most daily activities are closely related to them. For example, fiber optic transceiver, a device which can achieve the conversion of electricity and light signals is widely used in high-speed data communication system. And as a most commonly used type of transceiver modules, SFP (small form-factor pluggable) transceiver has been paid much attention around the world.

 SFP transceiver, a compact, hot-pluggable, input/output transceiver is not only used for telecommunication but also in data communication applications. It is designed to support communications standards including SONET/SDH, gigabit Ethernet, fibre channel and other communications standards. SFP is regarded as the upgraded version of GBIC module and has the same functions of GBIC. Unlike GBIC with SC fiber optic interface, SFP is with LC interface and it only has the half size of GBIC so that it can save space. Thanks to SFP transceiver, people step into a smaller-sized era of fiber optic transceiver. Moreover, with joint development and support from vendors, it has become a popular industry format for Gigabit Ethernet.

Classifications of SFP Transceivers

According to Gigabit Ethernet standards, SFP transceiver modules have many types, such as 1000Base-T SFP, 1000Base-SX SFP, 1000Base-LX/LH SFP, 1000Base-ZX SFP, 1000Base-EX SFP, etc. The following text will introduce three common types—1000Base-T SFP, 1000Base-SX SFP, and 1000Base-LX/LH SFP.

1000Base-T SFP

1000Base-T SFP is compatible with the Gigabit Ethernet and 1000Base-T standard as specified in IEEE STD 802.3 and 802.3ab. It uses Category 5 cable of unshielded twisted pairs with a maximum length of 100 m and supports 10/100/1000 autonegotiation with Rj-45 fiber optic interface. It takes the advantages of low power dissipation (1.05 W typically) and cost-effective, making it available in data centers for fast server switching or in desktop PCs for broadband applications. Here is a 1000Base-T SFP.

1000Base-SX SFP

1000Base-SX SFP, compatible with the IEEE 802.3z 1000Base-SX standard, transmits over multimode fiber with an LC connector , whose operating wavelength is from 770 nm to 860 nm for a maximum transmission distance of 550 m at 1.25Gbps (gigabit Ethernet) or 150 m at 4.25Gbps (fibre channel). For example, in the following picture, it is a Cisco GLC-SX-MM 1000Base-SX SFP whose maximum cable distance is 550 m over OM2 multimode fiber. But installed with high quality of fibers and connectors, 1000Base-SX SFP can be applied over significantly longer distances. This kind of transceiver is popular for intra-building links in large office buildings, co-location facilities and carrier neutral internet exchanges.

1000Base-LX/LH SFP

1000Base-LX/LH SFP, compatible with the IEEE 802.3z 1000Base-LX standard is the only kind of Gigabit Ethernet SFP transceiver which can both operate on single-mode and multimode fibers. The transmission distance of 1000Base-LX/LH SFP over single-mode fiber is 10 km, while over multimode is 550 m. And its transmitting and receiving wavelengths range from 1270 nm to 1355 nm. Furthermore, 1000Base-LX/LH SFP supports dual data rate of 1.25Gbps/1.0625Gbps with dual LC/PC connectors. 1000Base-LX/LH SFP is designed mainly for connecting high-speed hubs, Ethernet switches, and router together in different wiring closets or buildings using long cabling runs. This is a image of 1000Base-LX/LH SFP.

Applications of SFP Transceiver

SFP is expected to perform at data speed of up to 5Gbps or possibly higher and it allows the transport of fast Ethernet and gigabit Ethernet LAN packets over time-division-multiplexing-based WANs, as well as the transmission of E1/T1 streams over packet-switched networks. Additionally, SFP transceiver interfaces a network device motherboard (for any switch, router, media converter or similar device) to some fiber optic or copper networking cable.

Summary

SFP transceiver is one of the most frequently used fiber optic transceiver modules in fiber communications industry. Through the above introduction, you have already known the basic information about SFP transceiver modules. 1000Base-T SFP, 1000Base-SX SFP and 1000Base-LX/LH SFP are the three common optical transceivers that have been widely utilized in fiber optic network. If you are looking for any kinds of SFP transceivers, FS.COM is an excellent choice. FS.COM provides excellent 1000Base-T SFP, such as Cisco GLC-T, Finisar FCLF8521P2BTL, and RAD SFP-9G, etc. 1000Base-SX SFP, like GLC-SX-MM, and many other SFP modules at very reasonable price.