Wednesday, November 2, 2011

Fiber Optic Ethernet Converters

By Carole Arribas


Today, the network solutions are equipped with new and faster types of cables being released frequently making it faster and more advanced. When you find yourself having a network that utilizes the conventional type of Ethernet cables and another network that uses the faster and more reliable fiber optic cables, then you can connect these two together through a special kind of fiber optic Ethernet converter.

Cat 3 is one type of Ethernet cable to be discussed. This first type is a little bit old and the work is only limited up to 10 Mbps (megabits per second). It is seldom to see these types being used outside those different kinds of voice applications like the Voice-Over Internet Protocol (VOIP). There was an issue of cross-talk and interference which led to the immediate replacement of Cat 3 with more advanced and high quality types.

Any interference from wireless networks, electronic devices, or mobile phones would make fiber optic cables very highly resistant. This is unlikely seen in the more unpredictable traditional Ethernet cables which can frequently lose their signal if exposed to certain types of equipment. Thus, it is wiser to convert Ethernet cables to fiber optic cables because this will let you provide a faster signal than what Ethernet is capable of sending or receiving.

There are those which only have ports of either the 100 Megabit or the 10 Gigabit speed Ethernet cables, while some fiber converters will work with any type of Ethernet cable. At the time when a converter is attached between two different types of cables, the maximum speed that data is able to be transferred at on the faster type of cable will be lowered. Cisco and HP, and some other brands and models of converters will have different speed caps.

The Ethernet converters can come in different sizes. You can also see some which are designed for the size of your home or office network. Mostly, these are made of small plastic units, so that these converters can change a single Ethernet cable to a single fiber optic cable. There are also large converters. Large converters can convert dozens of cables at once and are mounted directly onto metal racks. The placement of these must be in a secured network room.

There must be a secure location of these fiber optic converters so that they cannot be disturbed by people or machinery. When broken or removed, each computer connected to the fiber optic cable would lose its internet connection eventually. These network solutions must be handled with extra care and caution. You must make sure your converters are in controlled temperature rooms that never get too hot or too cold all because they have those special materials that only work properly in specific temperature ranges.

Take note that fiber optic cables which will continue to work after being converted from an Ethernet cable have a range that is measured in miles. This means that very large companies with huge networks or internet service providers are actually taking a lot of advantage from Ethernet converters. This fiber optics can furthermore extend serial communication reach and the required adapters and converters are reliable, inexpensive, and easily available.

Just a good to know fact, when optics converters are used in an Ethernet-based system, serial data communication is not limited to distance anymore. 10BaseT 100BaseT 1000BaseT speeds can be easily handled with Ethernet converters. Gigabit-capable converters are available as well. You must know how to make use of this advanced networking technology now.




About the Author:



No comments:

Post a Comment