Ethernet and Fiber Optic Cables – Compatibility Explained

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I am new to networking, know about Ethernet and that Ethernet cables exist to make a wired networks. I also know about fiber optic cables which have a glass like material inside and transmit light signals instead of electrical ones. Now my question is, can I use fiber optic cables to for Ethernet or different type of implementation is made using fiber optic cables?

Thanks for your time!

Best Answer

Ethernet has been using optical fiber for decades. The first standard was 10 Mbit/s FOIRL in 1987, the currently fastest PHYs run 400 Gbit/s, added in 2017. Fiber has become common in datacenters due to the frequency and reach limitations of copper cables - currently and probably permanently limited to 40 Gbit/s over only 30 m of twisted pair or just 10 Gbit/s over the full 100 m.

Depending on your requirements, you're probably looking for one of these:

  • 1000BASE-SX: 1 Gbit/s over up to 550 m of OM2 multi-mode fiber
  • 1000BASE-LX: 1 Gbit/s over up to 10 km of single-mode fiber
  • 10GBASE-SR: 10 Gbit/s over up to 400 m of OM4 MMF
  • 10GBASE-LR: 10 Gbit/s over up to 10 km of SMF

There are many other PHY standards for various data rates and distances, also many common non-standards for even longer distance. The required optical transceivers are usually SFP (1G) or SFP+ modules (10G) plugged into your network hardware. External media converters for devices without SFP slot are also available.

For a complete list of physical layer variants you can check WP.

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