I’m an application engineer for Clearfield and just when I think I’ve seen the capacity of what fiber optics can do, I run into an application that knocks my socks off.
The lowering costs of SFP’s and an increased demand for bandwidth has sparked several new applications for fiber. One such application is Fiber to the Desktop – also known as Passive Optic Local Area Network/POLAN (or POL for short).
Today’s copper based networks are designed with the core switch transporting information to an arrogation switch via a multimode fiber cable. When routing from an aggregation switch to a desktop PC, CAT5/6 cables are typically used, however, the industry is transitioning away from copper CAT 5/6 cables and implementing fiber optics to realize cost savings benefits and future proofing of their networks.
Let’s compare the difference between traditional copper CAT 5/6 cabling and fiber cabling.
| Copper CAT 5/6 Cabling | Fiber Cabling | |
| Distance Limitation | 100 Meters |
20 Kilometers
(20,000 Meters) (in a PON Configuration) |
| Data Rate | 10 Gb/s | 10 Gb/s |
| Life Span | 5 Years | Unlimited = Future Proof! |
| Required management components | Air conditioning, power, communication closet space, and battery backup | None |
A key physical differentiating characteristic of fiber is that it’s smaller than copper cable. Thus, a fiber network has a smaller footprint and takes up significantly less space. Because of these reasons, fiber is a very green technology. More and more network engineers are discovering the benefits of fiber networks which bring 40% Savings on capital expenditure, 52% Savings on operational expenditure, and a 65% Savings on the total cost of ownership.
Clearfield has the best plug-n-play solutions for building a FTTD network. We believe in it so much that we designed and built it in our corporate headquarters!
By: Brian Schrand – Applications Engineer Manager