Category: Fiber Transceivers

by http://www.fiber-mart.comIt has been almost 20 years since DWDM came on the scene with Ciena’s introduction of a 16 channel system in March of 1996, and in the last two decades it has revolutionized the transmission of information over long distances.  DWDM is so ubiquitous that we often forget that there was a time when it did not exist and when accessing information from the other side of the globe was expensive and slow.  Now we think nothing of downloading a movie or placing an IP call across oceans and continents.  Current systems typically have 96 channels per optical fiber, each of which can run at 100Gbps, compared to the 2.5Gbps per channel in the initial systems.  All of this got me thinking about how it often takes two innovations coupled together to make a revolution.  Personal computers did not revolutionize office life until they were coupled with laser printers.  Similarly, the benefits of DWDM were enormous because of erbium doped fiber amplifiers (EDFAs). DWDM stands for Dense Wavelength Division Multiplexing, which is a complex way of saying that, since photons do not interact with one another (at least not much) different signals on different wavelengths of light can be combined onto a single fiber, transmitted to the other end, separated and detected independently, thus increasing the carrying capacity of the fiber by the number of channels present.  In fact non-Dense, plain old WDM, had been in use for some time with 2, 3 or 4 channels in specialized circumstances.  There was nothing particularly difficult about building a basic DWDM system.  The technology initially used to combine and separate the wavelengths was thin film interference filters which had been developed to a high degree in the 19th Century.  (Now a ’days photonic integrated circuits called Arrayed Waveguide Gratings, or AWGs are used to perform this function.)  But until the advent of EDFAs there was not much benefit to be had from DWDM. Fiber optic data transmission began in the 1970s with the discovery that certain glasses had very low optical loss in the near infrared spectral region, and that these glasses could be formed into fibers which would guide the light from one end to the other, keeping it confined and delivering it intact, although reduced by loss and dispersion.  With much development of fibers, lasers and detectors, systems were built which could transmit optical information for 80km before it was necessary to “regenerate” the signal.  Regeneration involved detecting the light, using an electronic digital circuit to reconstruct the information and then retransmitting it on another laser.  80km was much farther than the current “line of sight” microwave transmission systems could go, and fiber optic transmission was adopted on a wide scale.  Although 80 km was a significant improvement, it still meant a lot of regeneration circuits would be needed between LA and New York.  With one regeneration circuit needed per channel every 80 km, regeneration became the limiting factor in optical transmission and DWDM was not very practicable.  The then expensive filters would have to be used every 80 km to separate the light for each channel before regeneration and to recombine the channels after regeneration. Since full regeneration was expensive, researchers began to look for other ways to extend the reach of an optical fiber transmission system.  In the late 1980s Erbuim Doped Fiber Amplifers (EDFAs) came on the scene.  EDFAs consisted of optical fiber doped with Erbium atoms which, when pumped with a laser of a different wavelength, created a gain medium which would amplify light in a band near the 1550nm wavelength.  EDFAs allowed amplification of the optical signals in fibers which could counter the effects of optical loss, but could not correct for the effects of dispersion and other impairments.  As a matter of fact, EDFAs generate amplified spontaneous emission (ASE) noise and could cause fiber nonlinearity distortions over a long transmission distance.  So EDFAs did not eliminate the need for regeneration completely, but allowed the signals to go many 80 km hops before regeneration was needed.  Since EDFAs were cheaper than full regeneration, systems were quickly designed which used 1550nm lasers instead of the then prevailing 1300nm. Then came the “ah ha” moment.  Since EDFAs just replicated the photons coming in and sent out more photons of the same wavelength, two or more channels could be amplified in the same EDFA without crosstalk.  With DWDM one EDFA could amplify all of the channels in a fiber at once, provided they fit within the region of EDFA gain.  DWDM then allowed the multiple use of not only the fiber but also the amplifiers.  Instead of one regeneration circuit for every channel, there was now one EDFA for each fiber.  A single fiber and a chain of one amplifier every 40~100 km could support 96 different data streams. Regenerators are still needed today, every 1,200~3,500km, when the accumulated EDFA ASE noise exceeds a threshold that a digital signal processor and error correction codec can handle. Of course, since the gain region of the EDFA was limited to about 40 nm of spectra width, great emphasis was placed on fitting the different optical wavelengths as close together as possible.  Current systems place channels 50GHz, or approximately 0.4 nm, apart, and hero experiments have done much more. In parallel, new technologies have increased the bandwidth per channel to 100 Gbps using coherent techniques that we have discussed in other blog posts.  So a single fiber that in the early 1990s would have carried 2.5Gbps of information, now can carry almost 10 Terabits/sec of information, and we can watch movies from the other side of the globe.

by http://www.fiber-mart.comAs operators drive fiber deeper into their networks for increased speed and capacity, tolerances become tighter and margin for error becomes lower. That means quality is critical and every component in the network needs to perform better. This blog post explores the purpose and function of PPC’s new product category of fiber optical passives and splitters to help service providers gain speed and bandwidth, and the crucial role these devices play in enhancing the transmission of high-quality, ultra-high-speed broadband to multiple subscribers. MultiplexersOptical signals are transmitted in wavelengths (or channels) from the headend to the transition point, or directly to the subscriber. These wavelengths are combined using multiplexers (muxes) onto one fiber in order to travel the distance. They are then separated in a demultiplexer (demux) near the destination. WDM – Wavelength Division Multiplexing WDM combines and transmits different wavelengths on a single fiber. Several variations of WDM can be used, depending on the number of channels that need to be multiplexed. WDM offers the advantage of being easy and cost-effective to implement while enabling higher speeds and greater bandwidth capacity without the need to lay additional fibers. CWDM – Coarse Wave Division Multiplexing CWDM puts up to 18 channels on a single fiber, while still enabling a generous 20 nanometer (20nm) spacing between channels. CWDM uses lower-cost transceivers and is a more economical solution to sophisticated dense wave division multiplexing (DWDM) designs. CWDM is best suited to low density, short-run environments (typically less than 25 miles or 40 km depending on signal throughput). It is also ideal for networks that don’t offer potential for future expansion. DWDM – Dense Wave Division Multiplexing DWDM is the preferred solution when capacity and reach are critical. It accommodates a greater number of channels in a smaller band to maximize the capacity of fibers – typically fitting 48 channels at 100GHz spacing (or 96 channels at 50GHz spacing) into the 3rd transmission window (or C-band) at 1550nm.  DWDM C-Band channels can be amplified for longer-distance transmissions, generally greater than 40km or 25 miles. However, the tight tolerances of DWDM use sophisticated transceivers and highly-sensitive filters and prisms in the passive devices, so deployments typically cost more than CWDM. BWDM – Band Wavelength Division MultiplexingBWDM modules provide a method of combining groups of optical wavelengths onto a single fiber. A BWDM separates groupings of channels rather than single channels and is especially well suited to MDU applications or business parks where there are often more dense groupings of subscribers.  OADM – Optical Add Drop MultiplexingOADMs act as “on-and-off” ramps or by removing and rerouting individual wavelengths to specific destinations as the remaining signals continue down the trunk. OADMs are ideal when dedicated wavelengths are needed to service businesses or clusters of subscribers. Optical SplittersOptical splitting enables operators to spread the cost of expensive optical components across a large number of subscribers by dividing the signal symmetrically into 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, 64 or 128 divisions. These divisions can also be cascaded to spread the number of splits into smaller, optimized serving areas in accordance with the optical link budget. Optical splitters are most commonly used in FTTx and passive optical networks (PONs) deployed in the headend/central office and the outside plant to extend optical signals to the customer premises. Optical splitters can take on different form factors depending on deployment needs. Passives and other small components are critical to the network working efficiently and cost effectively. With experts like fiber-mart.com, you can optimize your optical networks to get peak performance out of your fiber deep architecture.

by http://www.fiber-mart.comFiber optic transceiver is an indispensable network data transmission equipment. What is fiber optic transceiver? What is the structure of fiber optic transceivers? What is the role of fiber optic transceivers in the data dissemination process? Fiber optic transceiver includes three basic functional modules: optical media converter chip, the optical signal interface (optical transceiver module) and the electrical signal interface (RJ45), with network management functions include network management information processing unit. Fiber optic transceiver is a short distance twisted pair electrical signals and optical signals over long distances to swap the Ethernet transmission media conversion unit, in many places, also known as Fiber Converter. Products in generic applications can not be covered in the Ethernet cable, you must use the fiber to extend the transmission distance of the actual network environment, and is usually located in the broadband metropolitan area network access layer applications; in helping the fiber last mile connections to the metro also played a huge role in the network and the outer layer of the network. Used directly in some of the larger companies, network construction fiber-optic backbone network established for the transmission medium, the internal LAN transmission medium is usually copper. How to implement LAN and connected to the fiber optic backbone? This requires different ports, different linear, convert between different fiber and ensure the quality of the link. The emergence of fiber optic transceivers, conversion between twisted pair electrical signals and optical signals to ensure the smooth transmission of data packets between two networks at the same time it will network transmission distance limit extended to more than 100 kilometers from the copper wire 100 meters ( single-mode fiber). What are the basic features of fiber optic transceiver: 1. It is completely transparent to the network protocol. 2. Ultra low-latency data transmission. 3. It supports a wide operating temperature range. 4. Using a dedicated ASIC chip data wire-speed forwarding. The programmable ASIC will focus on the multiple functions onto a single chip, has the advantages of simple design, high reliability, low power consumption, enabling the machine to get higher performance and lower cost. 5. Network management equipment to provide network diagnostics, upgrades, status reports, exception reports and control functions, provide a complete operation log and alarm log. 6. Rack equipment can provide hot-swap function, ease of maintenance and uninterrupted upgrade. 7. Support a full range of transmission distance (from 0 to 120 km). 8. Equipment 1 +1 power supply design, support for ultra-wide supply voltage, power protection and automatic switching. Fiber transceiver classification: There are many types of fiber optic transceivers. In WDM system, for example, there are CWDM and DWDM transceivers including CWDM SFP, DWDM SFP, CWDM SFP+, DWDM SFP+, CWDM GBIC, CWDM XFP, DWDM XFP, CWDM X2, DWDM X2, CWDM XENPAK, and DWDM XENPAK. FiberStore provides a full range of optical transceivers, such as SFP+ (SFP Plus) transceiver, X2 transceiver, XENPAK transceiver, XFP transceiver, SFP (Mini GBIC) transceiver, GBIC transceiver, CWDM/DWDM transceiver, and PON transceiver. All our fiber transceivers are 100% compatible with major brands like Cisco, HP, Juniper, Nortel, Force10, D-link, 3Com. They are backed by a lifetime warranty, and you can buy with confidence. We also can customize optical transceivers to fit your specific requirements.

by http://www.fiber-mart.comWhen you need transceiver modules for fiber optic networks, you will need some professional help. For those who have an IT department, employees will know buying and install these items. However, a small company does not normally have these extra employees. This means replacing your network plugs can be a bit difficult. You can go about buying these items diversely. Requesting professional guidance before you decide to attempt to purchase and install optical transceiver can help help you save much money and time. If your workplace includes a complicated system, it is most likely you’ve hired some other IT service for help. This particular service should be able to replace anything you need, or offer you advice on things to buy. Heading out and becoming them yourself will be more affordable. Ask your IT service how much they charge before you hire them to do that job. You may also try to locate a professional merchant online. Online stores sell all types of office products and really should be able to provide you with the help that you need. You should be capable of finding items such as GLC-LH-SM, a Cisco brand SFP transceiver, and other helpful products. A skilled merchant will give you smart advice by listening to what your system needs are. You will get this kind of guidance at no cost. They will also permit you to return and exchange accessories that might not work right. Your best choice when going directly to a merchant is to look for someone locally. This gives you the chance to make contact with a professional in person. A nearby vendor can provide you with assistance and demonstrate what you need. This lets you take a look at products personally. With a local retailer, additionally, you will come with an easier method to return any transceiver cables or other parts that are just not on your side. Get the assistance of experienced professionals when you need to exchange accessories for the computer system. This should help you obtain the best items for your company. With IT firms, additionally, you will get assist with installation. If you are using a vendor, make certain they’re knowledgeable in the items they’re selling. Retailers ought to be selling certified items which happen to be manufactured under the industry guidelines. It doesn’t have to be hard buying transceivers or other system products. Get the aid of a real professional. When spent considerable time on your hard drive, working or otherwise, there are lots of stuff that may happen to impede in your productivity, but for the most of individuals, it might be hard to differentiate whether it’s a hardware or software problem, or any other unknown source. It’s more probable that you may have older hardware or older drivers installed that may deter your device from operating at its most optimal capacity, in case your desktop is unprotected, chances are good that the problems may be caused by a virus, or spyware, but if your laptop is processing data slowly, or you’re experiencing challenge with a particular program. If the issue involves the drivers you have installed, then the solution is to simply go to the website for that driver in question, and look for the download tab, and you’ll discover the driver you need and update it to the newest version that ought to fix your issues. If you’re dealing with a potential hardware problem on the other hand, there may be many different reasons for the problems you have, and some of these might be more pricey than others, which makes it even more vital that you diagnose the issue and deal with it accordingly. Mostly due to the fact that whenever we all experience issues with the web, our initial assumption would be to blame the company, one basic problem individuals face that seems to be difficult to properly identify comes from reacting to some slow internet connection. The actual cause of the problem, in reality, is much more likely to be related to the hardware you’ve installed to receive your online signal. You may amplify the signal strength in order to receive an improved connection with minimal interference and as a result become more proactive with the right optical transceivers. If you do select to change your hardware, then ensure you research your options and buy the appropriate transceiver for your particular device, because there are multiple different transceivers on the market. Totally compatible with most devices available on the market, Cisco SFP modules can be combined with switches or routers to obtain the most out of your Ethernet connection and help you achieve probably the most consistent, regular flow of knowledge at your disposal. In the most of instances, the modules are often swappable and when you decide on your new module, it may be set up in minutes, then all you need to do is connect your Ethernet cable and you are prepared to return to work, more lucrative than ever before.

by http://www.fiber-mart.comIn the tech industry, an optical transceiver is a device used in networks to transmit slightly large volumes of data through a data glass fiber. Usually, the transceiver has added advantages over copper. They include low latency coupled with higher speeds. Other than that, for a transceiver to be more productive, you need to plug it into an active switch. This plugin must provide you with an interchangeable solution. In this article, starlinktek.com shares more insight regarding optical transceivers and their applications. How It WorksA fiber optic transceiver has a transmitter as well as a receiver. These two elements take a parallel position. Therefore, they can efficiently serve you independently. At the same time, the receivers operate with a circuit that powers every functional element therein to handle transmissions from different directions. In the long run, optical transceivers can easily interface with multimode cables to enhance data communication. 2. Looking At The Fiber Cable Of Transceiver The fiber cable of the optical transceiver has a tiny diameter. This is also the medium that allows for the transmission of different signals to occur within slightly extreme bandwidths. In the long run, long transmissions will be allowed. Fiber optic transceivers utilize a multimode fiber cable. This device facilitates the transfer of different signals in several modes. The diameter of the multimode also comes in various sizes. The standard size of the width is approximately 100 micrometers. 3. The Conversion Of Optic Transceivers A transmitter generally converts all electrical signals to a reliable optical signal. With the help of a connector, these signals are usually strong enough to penetrate the optical transmitter. To support this function, light from the cable will be transported to the receiver. Here, it shall meet a primary detector that can easily convert light into various optical signals. The entire operation of the transceiver is usually supported by the light emitted through a diode, which happens to be the primary source of light. 4. The Performance Parameters Of Transceivers An optical transceiver has different performance parameters. You should consider this feature before purchasing one. This is because the parameter will determine the output of your transceiver. Some of these parameters include sensitivity and the time rise of the transceiver. The sensitivity of your transceiver will majorly determine the weakest signal received by the transceiver. On the other hand, the noise floor of the device will determine the minimum signal. Another parameter to carefully assess is responsivity. This feature refers to the radiant energy produced with respect to the photocurrent. Take-Home Generally, transceivers utilize a multimode fiber cable. The element successfully supports the primary transmission of different signals found in the multimode. With that said, it is also important to note that the diameter of the receivers’ multimode is approximately 100 micrometers. This measurement is often based on a refractive index.  There you have it! An optical transceiver has several applications in different industries. In this article, we have shared some of its basic features.

by http://www.fiber-mart.comMayday, mayday. We have a problem! We have two switches who desperately want to talk to each other but the walls of their switch cabinets are restricting conversation and they are located 7 feet away from each other. Luckily there is a transceiver that can help us out: the small form-factor pluggable. The small form-factor pluggable (SFP) is a compact, hot-pluggable transceiver used for data communication applications.  These small metal devices plug into a special switch slot and support communication over either fiber optic or copper networking cable. Types To select the right transceiver, you will need to base it on the type of cable you are using, copper or fiber.  To communicate over fiber optic cable, make sure you select a transceiver that matches the slot bandwidth and speed of the device you are connecting to (1Gbps or 10Gbps) and your cable’s connector type (LC or SC). To communicate over copper, select a transceiver with an RJ-45 Ethernet port. Some transceivers support specialty applications such as Infiniband (sometimes used in high-speed storage networks). Make sure you understand your application requirements first, then select your transceiver accordingly. Optical Transceiver options GBIC- Originally named Gigabit Interconnect. Typically used for the Cisco 2900 & 3900 series switches, 10/100 megabit.SFP- Originally named Small form factor pluggable. Commonly used for the Cisco Catalyst 3560 & 3760 series switches amongst others. These SFPs will support Gigabit uplink connectionSFP+- Higher throughput with an enhanced version that will give you 10G uplink capability.  Commonly used for 3560x & 3750x series switches amongst others.Benefits & Why You May Need One These SFP transceivers are hot-swappable and have the capability to allow modifications which can be added after the initial purchase. These transceivers can also be deployed in “mix-use” environment of single-mode/multi-mode SFPs and a variety of hardware providing a flexible and customizable solution. If you are looking to have your switches communicate at a faster rate, installing an SFP may be useful. If you are looking for a little more speed in your transfer rates, you will need to have a switch or expansion module that supports 10GbE to use a 10GbE SFP+ transceiver, but not all switches/modules support that. From the looks of it, these SFP’s fits the bill for all of our switches and/or routers to communicate with each other. If you are in the market to buy any type of SFP, check out CablesAndKits as we offer a variety of options from Cisco Original, and compatible options.