Focus on OM5
OM5 wide-band multimode fibre
OM5: What brings the new fibre class for optical LANs?
Welcome to wide-band multimode fibres for SWDM – a new class of fibre to support future data increases and provide a solution to bandwidth limitations.
A solution that continues the proven two-fibre structure is one at a 100 Gbps, preferably using a single MMF. This enables the use of WDM techniques. We can take OM4-MMF as an example of a high modal bandwidth, but one with a narrow wavelength range, centered at 850 nm, that limits its WDM capabilities. The cost-effective operation of at least four WDM channels, each with 25 Gbps, requires high-bandwidth broadband MMFs over an extended wavelength range of 100 nm. For backward compatibility, the 850 nm wavelength was maintained, resulting in the operating window of 850 to 950 nm (see Fig. 1). The performance of MMF in a system is related to the effective bandwidth, which is a function of the effective modal bandwidth (EMB) and chromatic dispersion.
Outlook
There are already users whose planning horizon reaches up to 40GbE and beyond. The vast majority of applications are backbone switch-to-switch installations. OM3 with two fibers per line was already present in many cases and a system upgrade often took place step by step. It’s a strong advantage of the described WideBand MMF being fully backwards compatible with all previous MMFs from OM2 to OM3 up to OM4 and not imposing any other requirements to its connecting hardware than the conventional ones.
This allows the WideBand MMF to efficiently migrate existing 10G networks to cost efficient 40G and 100G implementations and further up to 200G. At the same time, WideBand-MMF is recognized by IEEE802.3 as Next-Generation MMF and thus supported in case of upcoming network standards.
Looking to the future
What brings the new fibre class for optical LANs?
Ideas, developments and solutions are in abundance, driving new and overlapping innovations at IEEE802.3. Discover cutting-edge insights and a new fibre class to carry heavy data. Download and read the full article.