[AusNOG] Multi-Mode vs. Single-Mode in DC's

[Nik Geyer]

MMF optics may be cheaper but they are one component of a greater TCO equation, e.g. I need to burn 12 cores of MM for 40GE (excluding BiDi) which has associated cabling costs (structured runs, termination, FOBOT's and so on). I'm also not sure if anything has changed but it was virtually impossible to get MPO pre-term patch leads in Australia for the first six months of last year, so I couldn't even connect my shiny 40GE optics to anything!

SMF for inter-rack to /easily/ support 40/100GE, DAC for Intra-rack.

Sent from my iPhone

On 6 Apr 2016, at 8:22 PM, Jonathan Brewer <jon.brewer at gmail.com<mailto:jon.brewer at gmail.com>> wrote:

Hi Skeve,

On 7 April 2016 at 12:04, Skeeve Stevens <skeeve+ausnog at eintellegonetworks.com<mailto:skeeve+ausnog at eintellegonetworks.com>> wrote:
I wanted to put a question to the community to help some University researchers.

In the first instance, direct them to the Fibre Optic Association's YouTube channel https://www.youtube.com/user/thefoainc as it's the best resource available for learning about fibre and optics.

They are wanting to know how much, in DC's particularly people rollout MMF vs. SMF

Data centre people still roll out Multimode. Companies still regularly roll out Multimode on campus networks. I don't agree with the practice, but it happens.

They're working on a technology to extend the capacity of Multi-Mode, to the speeds of Single-Mode - and want to know if there is a market for it.

There's never been a lack of speed for Multimode - only a lack of distance due to modal dispersion.

My gut however was that for a while, not many people bother rolling out MMF as the costs are rather similar when you compare it against comparable features.

Multimode optics are less expensive to manufacture than singlemode optics. While prices have converged at 1gbps, you'll find at 10, 25, 40, and 100gbps the cost of multimode is half or a quarter of singlemode.

-JB



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