Draka Communications has made its MaxCap OM3 and OM4 multimode fibers available in bend-insenstive versions. Introduced at the BICSI Conference the week of January 18, MaxCap-BB-OM3 and MaxCap-BB-OM4 combine Draka's high-capacity multimode fiber with its BendBright bend-insensitive fiber technology.
Bend-insensitivity has been a characteristic of singlemode fibers for some time. More recently manufacturers of multimode optical fiber began looking at, and developing, bend-insenstive multimode fibers. With typical singlemode fibers, slight bends can cause significant losses, degrading and potentially disrupting signal transmission. Multimode fibers have always been more bend-insensitive than singlemode fibers, however today's high transmission speeds such as 10-Gbits/sec require higher power budgets (i.e., lower loss or attenuation budgets) than previous-generation, lower-speed systems.
Most often these higher-speed multimode-based protocols are used in data centers, where multiple optical connections are necessary. Each optical connection is a point of loss in a system that must adhere to a strict loss budget. So the advent of bend-insensitive multimode fiber is a practical improvement to fiber-system performance in data centers as well as other environments.
"The new MaxCap-BB-OM3 and MaxCap-BB-OM4 offer provides our customers with premium bending performance in high-end multimode fibers for demanding applications," said Gerard Kuyt, product line manager for multimode fiber at Draka Communications. The new fibers result from Draka optimizing its patented plasma-activated chemical vapor deposition (PCVD) fiber-production process.
With the introduction of these bend-insenstive multimode fibers, "our customers can bring the benefits of the large and consistent bandwidth characteristics of our MaxCap-OM3 and MaxCap-OM4 fibers to environments that were previously at the limit of system margins for designs, or into more compact and higher-count cable designs for even better bandwidth at even lower footprint," Kuyt added.