This article, authored by John Kamino and Tony Irujo of OFS, appeared in the March/April 2018 edition of ICT Today Magazine.
New applications continue to drive the need for higher bandwidth networks in the enterprise. Since the majority of links in enterprise LANs and data centers are short, multimode optical fiber and vertical cavity surface emitting laser (VCSEL)-based transceivers have provided the lowest cost short-reach solution. In order to support the need for higher speeds, optical vendors are pushing into new frontiers to develop the most cost-effective solutions for their customers. Different methods of increasing the link capacity of a multimode fiber have been considered. Based on this investigation, wavelength division multiplexing (WDM) and OM5 multimode fiber (designed for operation at multiple wavelengths) are leading the way to next generation, short-reach multi- mode networking. Read More.