With the increasing demands of higher transmission, people may prefer fiber optic cables when considering network cabling. Compared to DAC, due to its flexibility, the fiber patch cable plays an important role in fiber optic data transmission, especially the data transmission between the switches and equipment, and now is widely used in both telecommunication and data communications. However, when choosing fiber patch cables for our transceiver modules, it seems to be a headache for many users on how to choose a right fiber patch cable. Today, I want to take the Cisco fiber optic transceiver module as an example to discuss this topic.
Actually, before starting this topic, it is necessary for us to review the basic knowledge of the fiber optic transceiver module and fiber patch cable.
Fiber Optic Transceiver Modules
Fiber Optic Transceiver Module is a self-contained component that can both transmit and receive data signals. Usually, it is inserted in devices such as switches, routers or network interface cards which provide one or more transceiver module slot. The fiber optic transceivers here we mentioned include the SFP, SFP+ and X2 etc. Wanna review and get more details please visit What are the Differences between SFP, SFP+, XFP, QSFP/QSFP+, CFP and QSFP28?
Fiber Patch Cable
Fiber Patch Cable, also known as fiber optic cable or fiber optic patch cable is designed to interconnect or cross connect fiber networks within structured cabling systems. According to fiber cable mode, cable structure or connector types etc., fiber patch cable can be divided into different types.
Fiber Cable Mode – there are single mode fiber patch cable and multimode fiber patch cable. The word “mode” means the transmitting mode of the fiber optic light in the fiber optic cable core. Single mode patch cables are with 9/125 fiber glass and are yellow jacket color, while multimode patch cables are with OM1 62.5/125 or OM2 50/125 fiber glass and are in orange color. In addition, there is 10 Gigabit Laser Optimized OM3 and OM4 which cable jacket are usually aqua.
Fiber Cable Structure – simplex fiber patch cable consists of single fiber core, while duplex fiber patch cable consists of two fiber cores which are either multimode or singlemode. Additionally, there is also ribbon fan-out cable assembly (ie. one end is ribbon fiber with multi fibers and one ribbon fiber connector such as MTP connector (12 fibers), the other end is multi simplex fiber cables with connectors such as ST, SC, LC, etc.).
Connector Types – Fiber optic patch cable can be also classified by the types of fiber optic connector. For example, LC fiber optic patch cable is named as it is with LC connector. Similarly, there are SC, ST, FC, MT-RJ, E2000, MU and MPO/MTP fiber optic patch cables. What’s more, there are PC, UPC, APC type fiber patch cords, which are differentiated from the polish of fiber connectors.
How to Choose the Right Fiber Patch Cable for Your Cisco Fiber Optic Transceivers
We suppose that we need to choose a right patch cable using between Cisco fiber optic transceiver SFP-10G-SR and X2-10GB-SR. How should we do? According to “Cisco 10-Gigabit Ethernet Transceiver Modules Compatibility Matrix“, we may know that SFP-10G-SR is the 10GBASE-SR SFP+ transceiver module for MMF, 850-nm wavelength, LC duplex connector. And X2-10GB-SR is the 10GBASE-SR X2 transceiver module for MMF, 850-nm wavelength, SC duplex connector. Obviously, when we require X2-10GB-SR has SC connector, and the SFP-10G-SR has LC connector. so that we would require patch cable with SC-LC connector with MMF, 850-nm wavelength. In the same way, we could choose right fiber patch cable for your other transceiver modules. Of cause, if your transceiver modules are not Cisco’s, you need to ask your brand supplier to get the corresponding compatibility matrix.
FS Fiber Optic Transceivers & Fiber Patch Cable Solutions
FS provides various fiber patch cord types including single mode, multimode, multi core, and armored versions. You can also find fiber optic pigtails and other special patch cables here. For most of them, the SC, ST, FC, LC, MU, MTRJ, E2000, APC/UPC connectors are all available. Moreover, we supply MPO/MTP fiber cables.
FS 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, 40G QSFP+ & CFP, 3G-SDI video SFP, WDM Bi-Directional transceiver and PON transceiver. All our fiber transceivers are 100% compatible with well-known brands like Cisco, HP, Juniper, Nortel, Force10, D-link, 3Com. They are backed by a lifetime warranty. We also can customize optical transceivers to fit your specific requirements.
Related Articles: How to Select 10G SFP+ Modules for Cisco Switches?