Work continues on the development of the OM4 fiber standard — but OM4 fiber is already here! OFS’ LaserWave 550 Fiber, available for more than five years now, meets or exceeds the requirements of the emerging OM4 standard. Widely deployed in high-speed data centers, storage area networks (SANs), campus backbones, and other demanding enterprise applications, LaserWave 550 Fiber provides seamless migration from legacy speeds to 10 Gb/s and beyond with no cabling system changes up to 550 meters. Our MCVD process produces a fiber with nearly zero differential mode delay (DMD) and 4700 MHz-km of EMB, more than double that of OM3 fiber, such as our LaserWave 300 Fiber.
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Data centers and SANs are expected to see further upgrades in 2009 and beyond to higher networking speeds of 40 and 100 Gigabits per second (Gb/s), depending on the application. Optical fiber is the transmission medium of choice for these networks, due to its low loss and high bandwidth, small size, and low power consumption and heat generation. Our latest paper on the topic reviews the fiber choices available to the data center manager and discusses the evolution of standards that will determine which fiber solutions are most effective and cost-efficient.
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As the adoption of OM3/OM4 fiber grows, network designers and consultants need to know how best to select fibers of this type to achieve the desired level of network performance and reliability. Bandwidth performance, and how it can be ensured, is arguably the most important consideration with these fibers. A new paper from OFS explains the similarities and differences between two bandwidth measurement methods — Differential Mode Delay (DMD) Masks, and Effective Modal Bandwidth Calculated (EMBc) — to help the user make a more informed choice between these two industry-recognized techniques.
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Fiber-to-the-home’s new-found status as the preeminent wire line solution, together with the emergence of IP video, are driving higher bandwidth requirements into rural areas. An often-overlooked by-product of these deployments is a need to link remote central office and hub locations over substantial distances. The capacity of those long haul fiber links will determine the industry’s ability to deliver next-generation services in the last mile, while the distances those links support may introduce issues that were previously the exclusive domain of long haul backbone providers. A new paper from OFS examines those issues and defines the points where they come into play for a rural FTTH deployment.
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