We pretty much laid the landscape in the January 2011 issue of Cabling Installation & Maintenance magazine when we published opposing sides of the bend-insensitive multimode fiber (BIMMF) discussion. One side says BIMMF technology (well, some of it anyway) is proven and reliable. The other side says, "Not so fast."
This debate matters a whole lot to the companies that manufacture multimode fiber, and to those that incorporate multimode fiber into their cables. But why should you care? It matters to you because the multimode fiber-optic cable that you buy and/or use in enterprise networks and data centers either does or does not have BIMMF within it. It is vitally important that you get straight answers from your cable supplier about the fiber within the cable and what, if any, performance guarantees they offer. Also, FYI, the concept of standardized specifications for BIMMF is being discussed within the TIA. Those must be some interesting meetings.
