This guide explains the five generations of multimode fiber - OM1, OM2, OM3, OM4, and OM5 - covering their physical characteristics, color coding, bandwidth, maximum distances at different data rates, optical sources (LED, VCSEL, SWDM), and real-world. To recap Optical Fiber can be divided into Multimode Fiber (MMF) and Single-Mode optical fiber (SMF). Multimode Fiber (MMF) has a core diameter, typically 50–100 micrometers, has ability to transfer multiple modes of light through the fiber core, uses lower-cost electronics (LED, VCSEL) operates at. Multimode fiber is a common choice to achieve 10 Gbit/s speed over distances required by LAN enterprise and data center applications. High-Speed Computing switch fabrics Panduit® Laser-Optimized OM4 fibers extend the application of multimode fiber to support transmission at 10 Gb/s (at extended reach) and future speeds such as 40 and 100 Gb/s.
Read More