Introduction of OM5 Multimode Fiber
Due to the continuous development of technology, optical fibers are improved from time to time to accommodate more data streams. After several upgrades, multimode fiber has been divided into four different categories OM1, OM2, OM3 and OM4. With the growth of data centers and the need for increased bandwidth and higher speeds, OM5 fiber has recently been brought to market. OM5 fiber is one of the newest types of multimode fiber.
om5 jumper
Multimode fiber is used to transmit multiple optical signals within its core. This makes data transfer faster. Multimode fiber can be used over short distances because the optical signals can be dispersed during transmission. This is also known as modal dispersion. Multimode fiber is the backbone of Ethernet and has been working to provide fast and reliable speeds for data center applications.
28% of data centers report that the solution that requires more data flow is to open new data centers. However, 53% of data centers expressed interest in expanding bandwidth, the obvious and cheaper solution. Therefore, relevant to this solution is OM5 fiber.
What is OM5 Multimode Fiber?
The Telecommunications Industry Association decided to develop a multimode fiber, an improvement over OM4 fiber. OM5 fiber is a broadband multimode fiber product with a core size of 50μm and a cladding of 125μm. These fibers will initially support 40G, 100G, 200G and 400G applications .
om5 fiber
OM5 is designed to support shortwave wavelength division multiplexing, which is an acronym for SWDM. The technology used by SWDM is to use four different wavelengths in the range of 840nm to 953nm on a single fiber. This helps reduce the fiber count by at least four , which means that the wavelength increases the capacity of the fiber by at least four under the concept of using multiple wavelengths.
It must also be mentioned that the official color block of the OM5 is lime green.
Important Key Features of OM5 Multimode Fiber
1. OM5 multimode fiber was developed to have an effective modal bandwidth from 840nm to 953nm.
2. OM5 multimode fiber is developed to support up to 400G Ethernet and 32G Fibre Channel applications.
3. OM5 multimode fiber has reduced chromatic aberration and is also backward compatible with other OM categories.
Advantages and disadvantages of OM5 multimode fiber
Heralded as the future of fiber optic technology, OM5 fiber surpasses previous versions for the following reasons:
1. OM5 is highly compatible with earlier similar products. If a data center is looking to expand its bandwidth constraints by installing OM5 fiber, this will be easy to do. Since the size of the OM5 core is the same as that of OM4 and OM3 . Therefore, OM5 is designed in such a way that it can support all existing infrastructures, so that it does not require extensive changes.
2. OM4 fiber is designed to support link lengths of at least 100 meters with 100G-SWDM4 transceivers. This is already great for short distance transmissions, but OM5 fiber can support link lengths up to 150 meters using the same transceiver. So this is the obvious reason why OM5 fiber has an advantage over the rest of OM fiber.
3. OM5 is a multi-mode fiber. Compared with single-mode fiber, multi-mode fiber is not cheaper than single-mode fiber, but optical modules for multi-mode are much cheaper than single-mode fiber. Building a data center is not easy because it is an expensive industry. Setting up and running a data center has some costs to consider. So overall, OM5 multimode fiber provides a more cost-effective solution for building data centers with more benefits.
OM5 fiber was introduced in 2017. Although OM5 fiber offers a solution to increase data speed and transmission, it also has its own drawbacks. The main disadvantages of using OM5 fiber are:
1. OM5 fiber is not cheap compared to single mode fiber, and it is more expensive compared to multimode fiber alternatives. Jumpers are more expensive in the market, making the move to OM5 skeptical. So, until now, VW has stuck with the OM4 due to its cost-effectiveness.
2. OM5 is typically used with 100G-SWDM4 transceivers for operation. Since the technology is completely new, the production of these optical modules has so far been limited. As a result, the production of OM5 fiber is still a minority phenomenon at present.
Conclusion on OM5 Multimode Fiber
OM5 fiber is a rugged fiber whose technology is driving the future of data centers. Over time, bandwidth requirements and the accompanying technological developments have increased. OM5 fiber opened the floodgates for the popularity of 200G and 400G multimode Ethernet, a faster and more reliable form of fiber optic networking. While OM4 is a multimode fiber that works almost as well as OM5, it loses out to the latter due to its lower bandwidth capacity. Compared to OM3 and OM4, OM5 can provide enhanced performance, especially when combined with SWDM or BiDi technology.
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