Tip of the Week: Will your fiber link work at 10G?

There are 3 major parameters one should be aware of when planning a 10G fiber link, Loss, chromatic dispersion and polarization mode dispersion (PMD). A 10G transceiver’s maximum optical budget is typically less than a 1G transceiver’s maximum budget, and hence maximum reach is less. Chromatic dispersion limits most 10G transceivers to a maximum fiber span of ~ 80 km over standard fiber (G.652). Any further distance requires proper dispersion compensation or signal regeneration. Often ignored, PMD can cause significant outages in a fiber span. These outages can be random and difficult to debug. Often equipment is blamed for the outage. Problem PMD values are more common in long older fiber cables installed before year 2000. However, any long fiber cable can experience high PMD. When deploying 10G and faster links, knowing your cable fiber PMD can be very helpful. Best way to measure PMD is with a PMD test set commonly performed during fiber characterization. Pertinent Products/Services: * DWDM or CWDM Multiplexers * Don’t be fooled, not all multiplexers are designed and constructed the same. You generally get what you pay for in this industry. Give me a call to inquire about our many high quality multiplexers.

Applications:

– metro fiber networks – long haul fiber networks – any other fiber span that requires increased capacity over 1 or 2 fiber strands

Features include:

– 40G and 100G compatible – completely passive, no power and no cooling required – transparent to all protocols – very simple to install, operate and maintain – high reliability – top notch engineering support before and after installation – Lifetime Warranty More details here: https://www.telecomengineering.com/products.htm To learn more about this topic and other fiber optic network topics, refer to my following books (publisher McGraw-Hill): “Planning Fiber Optic Networks”, ISBN 0-07-1499199 available from Amazon.com. Table of contents can be seen here: http://www.TelecomEngineering.com/products/resources/planningfibernetworks.htm.