How to Select the Right Fiber Optic Cables for Your Needs

While copper wiring has long served various applications for the transportation of power and data signals, such technology has since been superseded with the debut of modern fiber optic cables. As compared to copper wiring, fiber optic cables offer bolstered transmission speeds, thinner designs, and lighter weights. As such, they are highly advantageous for any signal transfer need ranging from home use to corporate data networking. In this blog, we will discuss the best way to choose fiber optic cables, ensuring that you only procure exactly what you need for your operations.

When perusing the market, you will quickly find that fiber optic technology will often vary based on cable type, performance, and installation requirements. To make the selection process simple, you should first determine what requirements you may have that are related to distance, network speed, cable jacketing, and connectors. While cable options like the multimode fiber were once the basic choice for various network needs, cost differences have balanced out in a way that makes it more advantageous to make considerations of your needs before procurement. For example, if the distance that you are sending data over is very short, a multimode cable may be best. Meanwhile, longer distances or higher speed requirements may benefit further from the use of a single-mode fiber.
 
Depending on the application in question and the installation environment that cables are placed within, there may need to be various forms of cable jacketing used. For example, indoor fiber cabling must have a cable jacket that is rated to meet local fire codes, and such identification may be found within Article 77 of the National Electric Code (NEC). Beyond meeting requirements, there may also be benefits to procuring jackets that offer flexibility and strength to guarantee reliability under loads and stressors. As a final consideration, fiber optic terminations should be chosen based on the ports present on your specific network equipment. For instance, if you are working with an Ethernet switch that has multi-fiber MTP ports, you will need to find cables that present an accommodating amount of fibers.
 
As stated before, there are multiple types of fiber optic cables, primary options being multimode and singlemode fiber cables. Multimode cables come in sizes like 50µm and 62.5µm, and their larger core diameters permit multiple streams of data to be carried at the same time. With the capability to transfer a high amount of data over a small distance as a result of their dispersion and attenuation rates, multimode fibers are most often used for communication that does not extend past a building or campus.
 
On the other hand, single-mode fibers have smaller cores that tend to be 8.3µm or 9µm in measurement, and these cables only provide a single path of light. While this may lower the total volume of data that is moved, this design allows for light to travel much longer distances. With more capability to operate across distances, single-mode fibers generally find use in campus data, cable TV, and telecommunications networks.
 
Once you have considered your needs and are ready to begin the purchasing process, look no further than ASAP Parts Unlimited for all your operational needs. On our website, we present customers access to over 2 billion new, used, obsolete, and hard-to-find parts, all of which trace back to leading manufacturers that we trust. If you find any items of interest on our website, be sure to fill out and submit an RFQ form at your earliest convenience, and our team will respond with a customized quote for your comparisons in 15 minutes or less. With 24/7x365 availability, you can also give us a call or email at any time, and we would be more than happy to assist you however we can as your strategic sourcing partner for all your operational needs.