Fiber Ethernet Standards PDF

2.1.6 Fiber Ethernet Standards Fiber optic cable uses infrared light signals. The light signals are also not susceptible to interference or noise from other sources and less effected by attenuation. Consequently, fiber optic cable supports higher bandwidth over longer links than copper cable. Fiber...

2.1.6 Fiber Ethernet Standards Fiber optic cable uses infrared light signals. The light signals are also not susceptible to interference or noise from other sources and less effected by attenuation. Consequently, fiber optic cable supports higher bandwidth over longer links than copper cable. Fiber optic cabling is divided into single mode (SMF) and multimode (MMF) types, and MMF is categorized by optical mode designations (OM1, OM2, OM3, and OM4). Ethernet standards over fiber set out the use of different types of cable for 100 Mbps, 1 Gbps, 10 Gbps, and 40/100 Gbps operation. There are variants for long wavelength optics, required for long-distance transmission, and short wavelength optics. Some of the main standards for speeds up to 10 Gbps are listed in the table. Maximum Specification Optics Cable Connectors Distance 100BASE-FX 1300 nm MMF (OM1) 4 km (2.48 ST, SC, MT-RJ miles) 100BASE-SX 850 nm MMF (OM1) 300 m (984 ST, SC, LC feet) MMF (OM2) 1000BASE-SX 850 nm MMF (OM1) 275 m (902 ST, SC, LC, feet) MT-RJ MMF (OM2) 550 m (1804 feet) MMF (OM3) 1000BASE-LX 1,300 nm MMF 550 m (1,804 SC, LC (OM1/OM2/OM3) feet) 1,310 nm SMF (OS1/OS2) 5 km (3.1 miles) 10GBASE-SR 850 nm MMF (OM1) 33 m (108 SC, LC feet)  Maximum Specification Optics Cable Connectors Distance MMF (OM2) 82 m (269 feet) MMF (OM3) 300 m (984 feet) MMF (OM4) 400 m (1,312 feet) 10GBASE-LR 1,310 nm SMF (OS1/OS2) 10 km (6.2 SC, LC miles) Fiber is often used for backbone cabling in office networks and for workstations with high-bandwidth requirements, such as video editing. The principal applications of 10 GbE (and better) are the following: Increasing bandwidth for server interconnections and network backbones, especially in datacenters and for storage area networks (SANs). Replacing existing switched public data networks based on proprietary technologies with simpler Ethernet switches (Metro Ethernet). Copyright © The Computing Technology Industry Association, Inc. All rights reserved.