OM5 Fiber Optic Cables and The Marketing Prospect

 What is OM5 Fiber?

OM5 fiber is known as Wide Band Multi-Mode Fiber Patch Cable (WBMMF), which is a laser-optimized multi-mode fiber(MMF) designed to specify bandwidth characteristics for wavelength division multiplexing (WDM). The new fiber classification method is designed to support a variety of short wavelengths between 850nm and 950nm, which are suitable for high bandwidth applications after polymerization.

What are the differences from OM1, OM2, OM3, OM4 & OM5?

1. The colors of sheath are different.

   For non-military using, single mode fiber usually use yellow color. For MMF, OM1&OM2 use orange color, OM3&OM4 use aqua blue color or purple color, OM5 uses aqua green.

2. The transmission distances are different.

   The transmission distance of OM5 fiber is longer than OM3 & OM4 with same transceivers.

3. The different Attenuation during the transmission.

  OM5 has lower attenuation than OM3&OM4 in 850nm wavelength.

4. Support different bandwidth and different wavelength.

What are the advantages of OM5?

1. High recognition: The OM5 fiber optic cable was originally released by the Communications Industry Association as TIA-492AAAE and was unanimously approved in the ANSI/TIA-568.3-D revision opinion issued by the American National Standards Institute;

2. High scalability: OM5 fiber optic cables can combine short-wavelength division multiplexing (SWDM) and parallel transmission technologies in the future, and only require 8-core Wide Band Multi-Mode Fiber (WBMMF) to support 200/400G Ethernet application;

3. Reduced costs: OM5 fiber optic cables draw on wavelength division multiplexing (WDM) technology of single-mode fiber, extending the available wavelength range during network transmission, supporting four wavelengths on a 1-core multi-mode fiber, and the number of the required fiber core is reduced to 1/4 of the previous one, which greatly reduces the wiring cost of the network;

4. Compatibility and Interoperability: OM5 fiber optic cables can support existed applications like OM3&OM4, and are fully compatible and interoperable with OM3 and OM4.

The marketing prospect of OM5.

With the development and application of wireless technology, the horizontal cabling bandwidth of commercial and industrial buildings has exceeded 1 Gbps, and the consequent requirement is that the cabling backbone infrastructure supports at least 40 Gbps and 100 Gbps. This means that high-density application promotion in data center is really suitable for current development and requirement. OM5 fiber optic broadband can support not only 802.11ac Wi-Fi systems, but also high-density 5G wireless networks.

Multi-mode fiber(MMF) has always been an efficient and flexible transmission medium, and it has continuously developed new application potentials of MMF, enabling it to adapt to higher speed transmission networks. Multimode fiber(MMF) with VCSEL has the advantages of lower cost, lower power consumption and higher availability, making it to be the most cost-effective data center solution for most enterprise customers. The continuously steady growth in demand for cloud data centers and enterprise local data centers provides a broad market prospect of cost-effective multimode fiber solutions. The OM5 fiber optical solution defined by the new industry standard is optimized for multi-wavelength SWDM and BiDi transceivers, providing longer transmission links and network upgrade margins for high-speed transmission networks above 100Gb/s. Therefore, as the transmission rate requirements increase continuously, OM5 fiber patch cable will have broad application prospects in the future 100G/400G/1T ultra-large data center.