Question about optical taps

[akalsteni68]

Hi, I have a stupid question about optical taps. We are going to need a few optical taps, mostly for 10G networks and surfing around the web I see thats some vendors have 1G and 10G taps with the same specs (insertion loss etc.). Are they just charging more for the same device? From my knowledge, since signals are light, tap should behave the same if the signal is 10G or 1g.

[w2w_Cabling123]

It's actually a very good question ..

TAP or optical splitter is splitting optical power with a high (traffic) and low (monitor / test access) ratio, such as 70% to 30%. 

For single mode, it's straightforward and there is no difference with 10G or 1G. 

For multi-mode fiber, it's a bit trickier due to the mode distribution - so the split ratio is not accurate, as it's depends on launch condition, timing, etc. So it's a bit random. What could be the issue is that your 30% side may come out only 20% or less sometimes, and if you have longer distance or lower optical margin, then you may have issues reading / monitoring - could be Bit Error issue as the "eye" of optical signal may be closing (OSNR - optical signal to noise ratio issue). 

Ping me if you need more ..