[120147] in North American Network Operators' Group
RE: Optical fiber question
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Deepak Jain)
Thu Dec 10 16:25:48 2009
From: Deepak Jain <deepak@ai.net>
To: Jared Mauch <jared@puck.nether.net>, Deric Kwok <deric.kwok2000@gmail.com>
Date: Thu, 10 Dec 2009 16:24:41 -0500
In-Reply-To: <F7FB36F5-73DC-4578-89AE-FFB2AC7787F7@puck.nether.net>
Cc: "nanog@nanog.org" <nanog@nanog.org>
Errors-To: nanog-bounces+nanog.discuss=bloom-picayune.mit.edu@nanog.org
> My provider said they can provide single / mulit mode Optical fiber
> >
> > Apart from the length and cost different, what is the Adv/Disadv
> > between them for our connection?
>=20
> The advantages are always in the distance capabilities of the single
> mode fiber. You can reach much further on this, but the optics tend to
> be more expensive. If you are going a short distance (eg: 2km or less)
> multi-mode is the way. If you're going to go any further, or want to
> ever go any further, take the extra cost and know you can swap optics
> in the future to do gig, 10G and possibly more (in the future) with
> less pain.
Just to amplify Jared's very complete answer. The principle reason you woul=
d use
multimode instead of single mode is reduced cost. If cost isn't an issue, s=
ingle
mode has more potential to be used in more applications. Even the longer ra=
nge
SM optics can be used for short range uses with inexpensive attenuators.=20
Service Providers support both because their customers may only support one=
or
the other.
Deepak Jain
AiNET=20
