OFS Intros Extended-Reach Fiber

NEW ORLEANS -- BICSI -- OFS, designer, manufacturer, and supplier of leading edge fiber optic products, today introduced LaserWave ™ XL 10 Gb/s multimode fiber. LaserWave XL fiber supports distances up to 600 meters with low cost 10 Gb/s 850 nm Vertical Cavity Surface Emitting Lasers (VCSELs).The 10 Gb/s 850 nm reach of LaserWave XL fiber is 600 meters with 0 dB connection loss, 550 meters with up to 4 LC connections, and 500 meters with 4 SC or ST® connections. “OFS is able to provide extended reach by imposing very stringent Differential Mode Delay requirements on LaserWave XL fiber,” said Peter Pilon, Vice President, Technology and Customer Focus at OFS’ Sturbridge, Massachusetts facility. “Furthermore, the OFS MCVD process allows accurate control of the refractive index profile in the central region of this fiber, critical to attaining this level of performance.” LaserWave XL fiber provides optical system cost savings of 20% for typical installations of 550 meter links compared to single-mode fiber based systems. The large multimode core diameter of LaserWave fibers enables the lowest system cost from 10 Mb/s through 10 Gb/s by easing alignment tolerances in the optics throughout the system. LaserWave fibers also extend reach for 1 Gb/s applications and support legacy lower speed applications. LaserWave XL fiber is the first fiber to support the OF-500 channel length described in the international cabling standard, ISO-11801 2nd edition – Customer Premises Cabling, with 10 Gb/s 850 nm applications.OFS