June 20, 2007 -- Sumitomo Electric Lightwave announced the introduction of hybrid fiber bundles (HFB) to its FutureFLEX Air-Blown Fiber (ABF) product line.
According to the company, as enterprises prepare to use more video-based applications, from product demos to security surveillance, the ability to control network capacity and quickly meet bandwidth requirements in real-time is rapidly becoming essential to the success of the enterprise network. Sumitomo says it is meeting this market demand by expanding FutureFLEX's fiber product line to include the hybrid fiber bundles.
"As enterprises ready their networks for the burgeoning demand of bandwidth-rich video and IPTV applications, Sumitomo is now offering our customers unprecedented solutions crucial to enabling enterprises in developing a 'ready-for-anything' network," comments Kurt Templeman, product manager, enterprise networks, Sumitomo Electric Lightwave. "End-users ensure future network expansion and immediate scalability by utilizing only a portion of the tube cells, filling the remainder as needed, effectively controlling bandwidth requirements as projects arise."
The company contends that hybrid fiber bundles can yield a three-fold increase in efficiency for each individual tube in the LAN infrastructure, as 50 and 62.5 micron multimode, singlemode, and the latest laser optimized 10 Gigabit 50/125 micron multimode fibers can now share one of the FutureFLEX system's 19 tubes. Previously, either singlemode or multimode fiber bundles were blown in one or more of the inner tube cells, requiring a two-step fiber insertion. As ABF typically requires one-tenth the time and labor cost of a traditional fiber optic infrastructure, the introduction of HFB drives costs down even further, according to Sumitomo.
The FutureFLEX air-blown fiber system consists of a point-to-point infrastructure of empty compact tubes, available in a variety of configurations, through which fiber bundles are blown using a pressure source of either compressed air or nitrogen. Fiber bundles can be blown through tubes at speeds of 100-to-150 feet per minute to any location within the LAN. Blowing in bundles usually takes only minutes or hours, compared with the days, weeks or months using conventional methods, allowing for quick and easy network upgrades and reconfigurations.