How To Choose The Right Fiber Patch Cable For Your Cisco

Fiber Optic Transceivers

As we know, according to the interface of Ethernet,
the common used pluggable modules include the
three types. Copper cable, usually with RJ45, direct
attech cable and the pluggable transceiver modules
with the patch cables, as the following picture shows.
Here, the copper cable, we also call copper patch cord.
The direct attach cable (short for DAC) is used to
connect one mobility access switch with another when
forming a stack which is widely applied in storage,
data, and high-performance computing connectivity.
But they are both not todays main topic.

With the increasing demands of higher transmission,

people may be more prefered to use fiber optic cables
when considering network cabling. Comparied to DAC,
due to its flexibility, the use of fiber optic transceiver
modules and fiber patch cable plays an important role
in fiber optic data transmission, especially data
transmission between the switches and equipment,
and now are widely used in both telecommunication
and data communications. However, when choosing
fiber patch cables for our transceiver modules, it
seems to be a headache for many users on how to

choose a right fiber patch cable. Today, I want to take

the Cisco fiber optic transceiver module as an example
to discuss this topic.
Actually, before starting this topic, it is necessary for
us to review the basic knowledge of the fiber optic
transceiver module and fiber patch cable.

Fiber

Optic

Transceiver Module is a self-contained component that

can both transmit and receive. Usually, it is inserted in
devices such as switches, routers or network interface
cards which provide one or more transceiver module
slot. The fiber optic transceivers here we metioned
include the SFP, SFP+ and X2 etc. Since we have
discussed each of these not long ago, we may not
repeat them here. Wanna review and get more details
please visit the previous post.

Fiber Patch Cable, also known as fiber jumper or fiber

optic patch cord is designed to interconnect or cross

connect fiber
systems.

networks within structured

According

to

fiber

cable

mode,

cabling
cable

structure or connector types etc., fiber patch cable can

be divided into different types.
Fiber Cable Mode there are single mode fiber patch
cable and multimode fiber patch cable. The word
mode means the transmitting mode of the fiber optic
light in the fiber optic cable core. Single mode patch
cables are with 9/125 fiber glass and are yellow jacket
color, while multimode patch cables are with OM1
62.5/125 or OM2 50/125 fiber glass and are orange
color. In addition, there is 10 Gigabit Laser Optimized
OM3 and OM4 which cable jacket are usually aqua.
Fiber Cable Structure simplex fiber patch cable is
consist of single fiber core, while duplex fiber patch
cable is consist of two fiber cores and can be either
multimode or singlemode. Additionally, there is also
ribbon fan-out cable assembly (ie. one end is ribbon
fiber with multi fibers and one ribbon fiber connector
such as MTP connector (12 fibers), the other end is
multi simplex fiber cables with connectors such as ST,
SC, LC, etc.).

Connector Types Fiber optic patch cable can be also

classified by the types of fiber optic connector. For
example, LC fiber optic patch cable is named as it is
with LC connector. Similarly, there are SC, ST, FC, MTRJ, E2000, MU and MPO/MTP fiber optic patch cables.
Whats more, there are PC, UPC, APC type fiber patch
cords, which are differentiated from the polish of fiber
connectors.

How To Choose The Right Fiber Patch Cable For Your Cisco
Fiber Optic Transceivers
We suppose that we need to choose a right patch
cable using between Cisco fiber optic transceiver SFP10G-SR

and

X2-10GB-SR.

How

should

we

do?

According to Cisco 10-Gigabit Ethernet Transceiver

Modules Compatibility Matrix, we may know that SFP10G-SR is the 10GBASE-SR SFP+ transceiver module
for MMF, 850-nm wavelength, LC duplex connector.
And X2-10GB-SR is the 10GBASE-SR X2 transceiver
module for MMF, 850-nm wavelength, SC duplex
connector. Obviously, when we require X2-10GB-SR

has SC connector, and the SFP-10G-SR has LC

connector. so that we would require patch cable with
SC-LC connector with MMF, 850-nm wavelength. In the
same way, we could choose right fiber patch cable for
your other transceiver modules. Of cause, if your
transceiver modules are not Ciscos, you need to ask
your

brand

supplier

to

get

the

corresponding

compatibility matrix.

Fibercasa Fiber Optic Transceivers & Fiber Patch Cable

Solutions

Fibercasa provide various types of fiber patch cords

including single mode, multimode, multi core, and
armored versions. You can aslo find fiber optic pigtails
and other special patch cables here. For most of them,
the SC, ST, FC, LC, MU, MTRJ, E2000, APC/UPC
connectors are all available, even we supply MPO/MTP
fiber cables.
Fibercasa provide a full range of optical transceivers,
such as SFP+ (SFP Plus) transceiver, X2 transceiver,
XENPAK transceiver, XFP transceiver, SFP (Mini GBIC)
transceiver,

GBIC

transceiver,

CWDM/DWDM

transceiver, 40G QSFP+ & CFP, 3G-SDI video SFP,

WDM Bi-Directional transceiver and PON transceiver.
All our fiber transceivers are 100% compatible with
major brands like Cisco, HP, Juniper, Nortel, Force10,
D-link, 3Com. They are backed by a lifetime warranty,
and you can buy with confidence. We also can
customize optical transceivers to fit your specific
requirements.
View: www.fibercasa.com
for more information