Modal Bandwidth of Fiber

[rais.ahmad]

How do I determine the Modal Bandwidth of fiber? Is it something mentioned on the fiber itself?

Thanks.

[spremkumar]

hi

AFAIK it depends upon the slot where u hookup the fiber (either SFP or GBIC )which can tell u the B/W limit/range it can support upto.

regds

[scottmac]

The question is a bit fuzzy (to me anyhow), but if it is listed as "9 (or 8.3)/) it's single mode fiber.

If it has "50/125" or "62.5/125" printed on the jacket, it's multi-mode fiber.

There are other sizes (especially for MM), but 50/125 and 62.5/125 are the most common, with 50/125 becoming more popular with the rollout of GigE over multi-mode.

Single mode also tends to be in a Canary Yellow jacketing, while multi-mode is frequently orange, but also comes in grey, black, and possibly other colors.

Single mode can carry more bandwidth farther without amplification. As a single bandwidth carrier, it commonly goes up to ~10Gig (OC192, 10Gig Ethernet) but could carry more.

As a carrier of a Wave Division Multiplexed (WDM, including Dense WDM - DWDM) signal, Single Mode can carry much more .... up to 64 channels, each channel carrying 2.4Gig to 10Gig (specs vary with the manufacturer of the WDM / DWDM).

Good Luck

Scott

[johansens]

Check the data specs of the fiber, or see if it's written on the fiber itself.. Look for a value like 160 Mhz*km (which is the standard value for multimode fiber).

I don't have a fiber in front of me, but IIRC it should be written on the fiber...

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