Category Archives: Optical Solutions

Using Fiber Optic Attenuators to Increase Bit Error Rate

Fiber optic systems transmission ability is based on the optical power at the receiver, which is reflect as the bit error rate, BER is the inverse of signal-to-noise ratio, high BER means poor signals to noise ratio. Too much power or too litter power will cause high bit error rates.

When the power is too high as it often is in short single-mode systems with laser transmitters, you can reduce receiver power with an fibre attenuator. Attenuators can be made by introducing an end gap between two fiber, angular or lateral misalignment, poor fusion splicing, inserting a neutral density filter or even stressing the fiber. Both variable and fixed attenuators are available.

Variable attenuators are usually used for margin testing, it is used to increase loss until the system has high bit error rate. Fixed attenuators may be inserted in the system cables where distances in the fiber optic link are too short and excess power at the receiver causes transmission problems.

Generally, multimode systems do not need attenuators. Multimode source, even VCSELs, rarely have enough power output to saturate receivers. Single mode system, especially short links, often have too much power and need attenuators. For a single mode application like analog CATV systems, the return loss or reflectance is very important. Many types of attenuators suffer from high reflectance, so they can adversely affect transmitters just like highly reflective connectors.

Attenuators can be made by gap loss, or a physical separation of the ends of the fibers, including bending losses or inserting calibrated optical filters. Choose one type of attenuator with good reflectance specifications and always install the attenuator at the receiver end of the link. It is very convenient to test the receiver power before and after attenuation or while adjusting it with your fiber optic meters at the receiver, plus any reflectance will be attenuated on its path back to the source.

When testing the system power, turn on the transmitter, install the attenuator a the receiver, use a fiber optic power meter set to the system operating wavelength. Check to see whether the power is within the specified range for the receiver. For accurate measurements, the fiber attenuators connector types much match the lanch and receive cables to be tested, e.g. LC fibre optic attenuators is needed to work with the LC fiber patch cable, it work in 1250-1625nm range with optional attenuation value from 1dB to 30dB.

If the appropriate attenuators is not available, simply coil some patch cord around a pencil while measuring power with your fiber optic power meter, adding turns until the power is in the right range.

CWDM DWDM Transceiver Solutions Provided by FiberStore

CWDM DWDM transceiver modules are used as a part of CWDM or DWDM networks to provide high capacity bandwidth across an optical network. FiberStore CWDM transceivers can operate on 9/125 single-mode fiber to 40km or 80km by using special CWDM channels (1270nm to 1610nm, in steps of 20nm). While DWDM transceiver can support a link length of up to 40km or 80km on single-mode fiber by using special DWDM channels. CWDM DWDM transceivers are worked with a variety of network equipment such as switches, routers, and optical transport devices, to link the ports to the fiber optic network.

CWDM DWDM transceiver must comply with SONET/SDH, Gigabit, Fiber Channel and other communication standards. They are available with a variety of different transmitters and receiver types, allowing users to select the appropriate transceiver for each link to provide the required optical reach over the available optical fiber link.

Dense Wavelength Division Multiplexing (DWDM) solution includes DWDM Xenparks which allow to integrate WDM transport directly with Cisco 10 Gigabit Ethernet switches and routers. The DWDM Xenparks and DWDM optical filter and amplifier products enable the design of a flexible and highly available multi-service network. The DWDM XENPAKs can be used for un-amplified and amplified designs to transmit upto 320 Gigabit over the same pair of SMF. DWDM GBICs allow to integrate WDM transport directly with Cisco Gigabit Ethernet switches and routers. Similar to DWDM Xenpark, the DWDM GBICs interoperable with the same ONS equipment. They can be used for un-amplified and amplified designs to transmit upto 32 Gigabit over the same pair of SMF.

Coarse Wave Division Multiplexing (CWDM) solution allows scalable and easy-to-deploy Gigabit Ethernet (GbE) and Fibre Channel service. The combination of CWDM GBICs and SFPs and CWDM Optical Add/Drop multiplexer modules enables the design of a flexible and highly available multiservice network. CWDM GBIC/SFP solution has two main components: a set of eight different pluggable transceivers and a set of different CWDM Mux Demux or OADM. FiberStore CWDM solution offers a convenient and cost effective solution for the adoption of optical Gigabit Ethernet campus, data center, and metropolitan-area access networks. Our CWDM solutions consist of a set of eight different SFPs, a set of 8 single wavelength/dual channels OADMs, two 4 channels OADM/Mux and an 8 channel CWDM along with a CWDM rack mountable chassis.

CWDM SFP+ module allows enterprises and service providers to offer scalable and easy-to-deploy 10 Gigabit LAN, WAN, and optical transport network service in the network. CWDM 10Gig SFP+ transceivers are 18 center wavelengths available from 1270nm to 1610nm, with each step 20nm.

FiberStore is one of the main DWDM/CWDM system provider that capable to supply the high reliability WDM/CWDM/DWDM components & equipments including CWDM MUX DEMUX, DWDM MUX/DEMUX, CWDM/DWDM transceiver modules, which come with compact size, Low Insertion Loss, bi-directional and environmentally independent features.

3G HD Digital Video SFP Transceivers from FiberStore

As HD content becomes the norm in video and broadcasting industry, the limitation to transporting HD video on a network have a bigger impact on budget, responding to this demand in HD video transmission, FiberStore releases the 3G HD digital video SFP transceiver families address issues raised by the data-scrambling algorithms used in DV, enabling digital video to be transported over optical network using standard transceivers,” says Dan Ligon, director and principal analyst for SMPTE. “We are ensuring that we meet this demand in a highly-efficient and cost-effective manner, while providing a superior service experience to our customers.

Digital Video SFP transceivers are designed to affordably transmit SDI, HD-SDI, or DVB digital video component signals over fiber using standard optical transceivers. It is a dual channel optical transmitter module designed to transmit optical serial digital signals as defined in SMPTE 297-2006. It supports from 50 Mbps to 3Gbps and is specially designed for transmitting SMPTE 424M/292M/29M/259M pathological patterns video with reach of 10, 20, 40km over single mode fiber.

The digital video SFP transceiver offers a direct and affordable solution to the problems of digital video optical transport. They allow the transport of SDI, HD-SDI, or DVB ASI component video signals over any optical transport system that employs MSA standard optical transceivers.

FiberStore is a leading global suppliers of optoelectronic device solutions. We designs, develops, manufacturers and market a diverse portfolio of high performance, cost-competitive fiber optic communication products for all application. Our broad fiber optic portfolios includes CWDM DWDM network components, bulk fiber cables, fiber patch cable, cable management equipment, as well as series fiber testers & tools.

CWDM Solutions Offered by FiberStore

As broadband has unveiled a new world for subscriber, full of advanced capabilities and faster speeds. Your challenge is to meet their demands without compromising your budget. Because of its distance, speed and bandwidth potential, fiber optics has become the choice for many service providers. Fiber optic connections typically requires two strands of fiber – one for transmitting and one for receiving signals. But how to do if you need to add services or customers, but you’ve exhausted your fiber lines?

Thanks to CWDM, coarse wave division multiplexing (CWDM) is a method of combining multiple signals on laser beams at various wavelengths for transmission along fiber optic cables. The number of channels is fewer than in dense wavelength division multiplexing (DWDM) but more than in standard WDM.

CWDM has many advantages over DWDM technology in terms of system costs, set-up, maintenance, and scalability. CWDM is a technology which multiplexes multiple optical signals on a single fiber optic stand by using different wavelengths, or colors, of laser light to carry the different signals.

Typical CWDM solutions provide 8 wavelengths capacity enabling the transport of 8 client interface over the same fiber. However, the relatively large separation between the CWDM wavelengths allows expansion of the CWDM network with an additional 44 wavelengths with 100GHz spacing utilizing DWDM technology, thus expanding the existing infrastructure capacity and utilizing the same equipment as part of the integrated solution.

A single outgoing and incoming wavelength of the existing CWDM infrastructure is used for 8 DWDM channels multiplexing into the original wavelength. DWDM Mux Demux and optical amplifier if needed.

The typical CWDM spectrum supports data transport rates of up to 4.25Gbps, CWDM occupies the following ITU channels: 1470nm, 1490nm, 1510nm, 1530nm, 1550nm, 1570nm, 1590nm, and 1610nm, each separated from the other by 20nm. PacketLight can insert into any of the of the 4 CWDM wavelengths (1530nm,1550nm,1570nm and 1590nm), a set of additional 8 wavelength of DWDM separated from each other by only 0.1nm. By doing so up to 4 times, the CWDM network capability can easily expand by up to 28 additional wavelengths.

With FiberStore’s compact CWDM solutions, you can receive all of the above benefits and much more (such as integrated amplifiers, protection capabilities, and integration with 3rd party networking devices, etc.) in a cost effective 1 U unit, allowing you to expand as you grown, and utilize your financial as well as physical resources to the maximum. FiberStore provides all the component involved in the process, such CWDM MUX DWMUX, CWDM OADM, even CWDM SFP transceivers.

CWDM DWDM Networking Solutions

Wavelength division multiplexing is a cost effective and efficient way for expanding the fiber optic transmission capacity, because it allows using current electronics and current fibers and simply shares fibers by transmitting different channels at different color (wavelength) of light.

Wavelength Division Multiplexing, WDM is a technique that multiplexing several signals over a single fiber optic cables by optical carriers of different wavelength, using light from a laser or a LED. According to the number of wavelengths it supports, there are Coarse Wavelength Division Multiplexing (CWDM) and Dense Wavelength Division Multiplexing (DWDM).

CWDM was introduced as a low-cost approach to increasing bandwidth utilization of the fiber infrastructure. By using several wavelengths/colors of the light, 18 channels are viable and defined in the ITU-T standard G.694.2. CWDM systems typically provide 8 wavelengths, separated by 20nm, from 1470nm to 1610nm.

Benefits of CWDM
Passive equipment that uses no electrical power
Extended Temperature Range (0-70C)
Much lower cost per channel than DWDM
Scalability to grow fiber capacity with little or no increased cost
Protocol Transparent
Simple to install and use

Drawbacks of CWDM
16 channels may not be enough
Passive equipment offers no management capacities

DWDM packing WDM channels denser than in CWDM systems, 100 GHz spacing (approx. 0.8nm), more channels and higher capacity can be achieved using DWDM. IUT-T recommendation G.694.1 defines the DWDM channels spectrum. DWDM comes in two different versions: an active solution and a passive solution. An active solution is going to require wavelength management and it a good fit for applications involving more than 32 lines over the same fiber. In most cases, passive DWDM is looked at as a more realistic alternative to active DWDM.

Benefits of DWDM
Up to 32 channels can be done passively
Up to 160 channels with an active solution
Active solutions typically involve optical amplifiers to achieve longer distances

Drawbacks of DWDM
DWDM is very expensive
Active solutions require a lot of set-up and maintenance expense
“Passive” DWDM solution still requires power

Optical Add/Drop Multiplexing (OADM)
By optical add/drop multiplexing techniques, wavelength channels may be added and dropped at intermediate nodes using passive optical components only. Optical Add/Drop Multiplexers are used in WDM Systems for multiplexing and routing fiber optic signals. They can multiplex several low-bandwidth streams of data into a single light beam, and simultaneously, it can drop or remove other low-bandwidth signals from the stream of data and direct them to other network routers. There are CWDM OADM and DWDM OADM.

FiberStore offer a wide range of WDM optical networking products that allow transport of any mix of service from 2Mbps up to 200Gbps. Our highly reliable WDM/CWDM/DWDM products include CWDM multiplexers and demultiplexer, DWDM Multiplexers and demultiplexers, CWDM & DWDM Optical Add-drop Multiplexer, Filter WDM modules, CATV amplifier, OEO converters as well as many other most demanding CWDM DWDM networking infrastructure equipment.

Fiber Optic Media Converters Used In Ethernet Networks

About Fiber Optic Media Converter:

A fiber optic media converter is a simple networking device, the fiber to ethernet media converter can converts one network media type (defined by the cable, connector, and bandwidth) into another. They are also used in metropolitan area network (MAN) access and data transport services to enterprise customers. This transition allows any business, no matter what its size, to expand their old network with the latest technology. This flexibility allows for a greater efficiency and harmony between departments and individuals.

A typical media converter is made up of two transceivers, sometimes referred to as media attachment units. These can transmit data to and from each other. Each MAU (Media Attachment Unit) comes with a different industry standard format fibre connector which is able to join different types of media. The basic concept is that one media type enters and another exits. All connectors are up to date with the latest IEEE standards and protocols.

Benefits of Ethernet to Fiber Optic Converters:

Protects your investment in existing copper ethernet-based hardware
Provides you with the flexibility to add fiber on a port-by-port basis
Enjoy the benefits of fiber without have to make wholesale changes
Fast ethernet or Gigabit ethernet to multi-mode or single mode
Ethernet to fiber and fiber back to ethernet links
Create copper-fiber connections with fiber switches

Why used the fiber to ethernet media converter?

Fiber to Ethernet Media Converter models that are best suited for enterprise and Service Provider applications, offer an on-board processor to continuously monitor that both fiber connections are up. This functionality, generally referred to as “Link Pass-Through”, monitors the state of the link to the end devices and ensures that each end-point knows whether the entire link is up or not. Some media converter products do not have this intelligence and simply “nail up” the link even though the fiber link peer is down. With Link Pass-Through, a feature available in all FiberStore Fiber to Fiber Optic Converters, the network’s SNMP management system can be alerted when a fault occurs so that corrective action can take place.

Fiber to ethernet network media converters are used in Cisco Systems, IBM, Nortel, Microsoft and ADC. By using our media converters, these world leading enterprises cut their cabling cost. Based on Transition Point System advantages, users could save the cost while do not degrade the network performance.

FiberStore is an professional manufacturer & supplier of fiber to Ethernet converter and fiber optic cable. All of our fiber media converters are tested in house prior to shipping to guarantee that they will arrive in perfect physical and working condition. If you have questions about optics(such as customized the fiber to ethernet converter,fiber optic cable specifications,ect.), please feel free to contact us at sales@fs.com.

GEPON Splitter Of Passive Optical Components

With the growing demand of broadband, Passive Optical Network (PON) is the most promising NGN (Next Generation Networking) technology to meet the demand currently. GEPON(Gigabit Ethernet Passive Optical Network) use WDM technology and it is with 1Gbps bandwidth and up to 20km working distance, which is a perfect combination of Ethernet technology and passive optical network technology.

GEPON Technology:

The GEPON (Gigabit Ethernet Passive Optical Network) system is composed of the Optical Line Terminal (OLT), Optical Distribution Network (ODN) and Optical Network Unit (ONU).The ODN consists of only passive elements splitters, fibre connector and fiber optics. PON means passive optic network, EPON is integrated with Ethernet technologies, and GEPON is a Gigabit EPON. GEPON system is designed for telecommunication use. This series of products features high integration, flexible application, easy management, as well as providing QoS function. The fiber network speed can reach up to 1.25GB/s and each EPON OLT (Optical Line Terminal) system can distribute into 32 remote ONU (Optical Network Unit) to build up the fiber passive network by a max 32 way optical splitter with the advantage of big capacity of data transmission, high security, flexibility of buildup network, mainly applies for FTTH (Fiber To The Home) projects, which can access to IP telephone, Broadband data and IPTV.

GEPON is a perfect combination of Ethernet technology and passive optical network technology. It eliminate the usage of active fiber optic components between OLT and ONU, this will greatly cut the cost and make the network easier to maintain. GEPON use WDM technology and it is with 1Gbps bandwidth and up to 20km working distance.

Optical Splitter Work In GEPON Network:

Passive Fiber Optic Splitters For GEPON Network,the Optical Splitter, also named beam splitter, is based on a quartz substrate of integrated waveguide optical power distribution device, the same as coaxial cable transmission system, The optical network system also needs to be an optical signal coupled to the branch distribution, which requires the fiber optic splitter, Is one of the most important passive devices in the optical fiber link, is optical fiber tandem device with many input terminals and many output terminals, Especially applicable to a passive optical network (EPON, GPON, BPON, FTTX, FTTH etc.) to connect the MDF and the terminal equipment and to achieve the branching of the optical signal.

GEPON splitter based on planar lightwave circuit technology and precision aligning process can divide a single/dual optical input(s) into multiple optical outputs uniformly, and offer superior optical performance, high stability and high reliability to meet various application requirements. Our standard modules with GEPON Splitter have “ABS-type” & “Rack-type”. We can also have the customized dimension. If you need the customized service,pls contact us for detail conditions for customization. Our customization includes branding FiberStore or OEM,modifying physical size and appearance and re-designing per customer requirements.

FiberStore provides some kinds of passive optical components,available components include couplers, planar splitters and wavelength division multiplexers (WDMs).We not oly provide the optical components,but also suppply the cheap fiber optic cable.

Four Types Of Common Optic Components

Optical components include lasers, splitters, multiplexers, switches, photodetectors and other receiver types,and other building blocks of fiber optic communications modules, line cards, and systems. FiberStore provide many types of optical components,such as fiber splitters,optical attenuator,fibre connector,fiber optic transceiver modules and so on. We will not regularly updated -product, tutorials, blog and other related information, sharing of information about fiber optic communication.

Common Optic Components:

The First,Fiber Splitters. The Fiber Optic Splitter, also named beam splitter, is based on a quartz substrate of integrated waveguide optical power distribution device, the same as coaxial cable transmission system, The optical network system also needs to be an optical signal coupled to the branch distribution, which requires the fiber optic splitter, Is one of the most important passive devices in the optical fiber link, is optical fiber tandem device with many input terminals and many output terminals, Especially applicable to a passive optical network (EPON, GPON, BPON, FTTX, FTTH etc.) to connect the MDF and the terminal equipment and to achieve the branching of the optical signal.

The Second,Optical Attenuator. The optical attenuator is a device used to reduce the power level of an optical signal, either in free space or in an optical fiber. The basic types of optical attenuators are fixed, step-wise variable, and continuously variable.Attenuators are commonly used in fiber optic communications, either to test power level margins by temporarily adding a calibrated amount of signal loss, or installed permanently to properly match transmitter and receiver levels.The most commonly used type is female to male plug type fiber optic attenuator, and it has the fiber connector at one side and the other side is a female type fiber optic adapter. The types of fiber optic attenuators are based on the types of connectors and attenuation level. FiberStore supply a lot of fiber optic attenuators, like FC, SC/APC, ST, PC, LC, UPC, MU, FC/APC, SC, LC/APC, fixed value plug type fiber attenuators with different attenuation level, from 1dB to 30dB.

The Third,Fibre Connector. Fibre connector is used to join optical fibers where a connect/disconnect capability is required. The basic connector unit is a connector assembly. A connector assembly consists of an adapter and two connector plugs.Optical fiber connector is removable activities between optical fiber and optical fiber connection device. It is to put the fiber of two surface precision docking, so that the optical output of optical energy to maximize the fiber optic coupler in receiving optical fiber, and optical link due to the intervention and to minimize the effects on the system, this is the basic requirement of fiber optic connector. To a certain extent, fiber optic connector also affects the fiber optic transmission reliability and the performance of the system.

The Fourth,Fiber Optic Transceiver Modules. Fiber optic transceiver is an important device in the optical fiber communication systems, which can be performed between the photoelectric signal conversion, with the receiving and transmitting functions. The fiber optic module is typically composed by the optoelectronic devices, the functional circuit and the optical interface, the optoelectronic device includes a transmitter and receiver in two parts.Usually, it is inserted in devices such as routers or network interface cards which provide one or more transceiver module slot (e.g GBIC, SFP, XFP).

For more information about fiber optic component,pls focus on www.fs.com, we will not regularly updated product, tutorials, blog and other related optical component information.

WDM Optical MUX Technology

With the exponential growth in communications, caused largely by the wide acceptance of the Internet, many carriers have found their estimates of fiber needs have been highly underestimated. Although most cables included many spare fibers when installed, this growth has used many of them and new capacity is required. Make use of a number of ways to improve this problem, eventually the WDM has shown more cost effective in most cases.

WDM Definition:

Wave Division Multiplexing (WDM) enables multiple data streams of varying wavelengths (“colors”) to become combined right into a single fiber, significantly enhancing the overall capacity from the fiber. WDM can be used in applications where considerable amounts of traffic are needed over long distance in carrier networks. There’s two types of WDM architectures: Course Wave Division Multiplexing (CWDM) and Dense Wave Division Multiplexing (DWDM).

WDM System Development History:

A WDM system uses a multiplexer in the transmitter to become listed on the signals together, and a demultiplexer at the receiver to separate them apart. With the right type of fiber it is possible to have a device that does both simultaneously, and can work as an optical add-drop multiplexer. The optical filtering devices used have conventionally been etalons (stable solid-state single-frequency Fabry¡§CP¡§|rot interferometers by means of thin-film-coated optical glass).

The idea was first published in 1980, and by 1978 WDM systems appeared to be realized in the laboratory. The first WDM systems combined 3 signals. Modern systems are designed for as much as 160 signals and can thus expand a fundamental 10 Gbit/s system over a single fiber pair to in excess of 1.6 Tbit/s.

WDM systems are well-liked by telecommunications companies because they allow them to expand the capacity of the network without laying more fiber. By utilizing WDM and optical amplifiers, they can accommodate several generations of technology rise in their optical infrastructure without needing to overhaul the backbone network. Capacity of a given link can be expanded by simply upgrades towards the multiplexers and demultiplexers at each end.

This is often made by use of optical-to-electrical-to-optical (O/E/O) translation in the very edge of the transport network, thus permitting interoperation with existing equipment with optical interfaces.

WDM System Technology:

Most WDM systems operate on single-mode fiber optical cables, which have a core diameter of 9 µm. Certain forms of WDM may also be used in multi-mode fiber cables (also referred to as premises cables) which have core diameters of fifty or 62.5 µm.

Early WDM systems were expensive and complicated to operate. However, recent standardization and better understanding of the dynamics of WDM systems make WDM less expensive to deploy.

Optical receivers, as opposed to laser sources, tend to be wideband devices. Therefore the demultiplexer must provide the wavelength selectivity of the receiver in the WDM system.

WDM systems are split into different wavelength patterns, conventional/coarse (CWDM) and dense (DWDM). Conventional WDM systems provide up to 8 channels within the 3rd transmission window (C-Band) of silica fibers around 1550 nm. Dense wavelength division multiplexing (DWDM) uses the same transmission window but with denser channel spacing. Channel plans vary, but a typical system would use 40 channels at 100 GHz spacing or 80 channels with 50 GHz spacing. Some technologies are capable of 12.5 GHz spacing (sometimes called ultra dense WDM). Such spacings are today only achieved by free-space optics technology. New amplification options (Raman amplification) enable the extension of the usable wavelengths towards the L-band, pretty much doubling these numbers.

Coarse wavelength division multiplexing (CWDM) in contrast to conventional WDM and DWDM uses increased channel spacing to allow less sophisticated and thus cheaper transceiver designs. To supply 8 channels on one fiber CWDM uses the whole frequency band between second and third transmission window (1310/1550 nm respectively) including both windows (minimum dispersion window and minimum attenuation window) but the critical area where OH scattering may occur, recommending using OH-free silica fibers in case the wavelengths between second and third transmission window ought to be used. Avoiding this region, the channels 47, 49, 51, 53, 55, 57, 59, 61 remain and these are the most commonly used.Each WDM Optical MUX includes its optical insertion loss and isolation measures of every branch. WDMs are available in several fiber sizes and kinds (250µm fiber, loose tube, 900µm buffer, Ø 3mm cable,simplex fiber optic cable or duplex fiber cable).

WDM, DWDM and CWDM are based on the same idea of using multiple wavelengths of sunshine on one fiber, but differ within the spacing of the wavelengths, quantity of channels, and also the capability to amplify the multiplexed signals within the optical space. EDFA provide an efficient wideband amplification for that C-band, Raman amplification adds a mechanism for amplification in the L-band. For CWDM wideband optical amplification is not available, limiting the optical spans to many tens of kilometres.

Regardless if you are WDM Optical MUX expert or it is your first experience with optical networking technologies, FiberStore products and services are equipped for simplicity of use and operation across all applications. If you want to choose some fiber optic cable to connect the WDM, you are able to make reference to our fiber optic cable specifications.Have any questions, pls contact us.

Some Info About Fiber Optic Multiplexer Technology

Fiber Optic Cabling Solutions

The largest solutions of pre-terminated fiber optics, including multimode and single-mode patch cords, MTP/MPO fiber trunks and harnesses, plug-n-play modules/cassettes and fiber enclosures.