Fibres & Cabling

Sumitomo Electric Industries has released a new series of ultra-high-fibre-count ribbon cables to meet the growing need for high fibre density in data centres. The new cables are available in fibre counts of 1152, 1728, and 3456.

The highest-fibre-count cable accommodates 3456 fibres in an outer diameter of 34mm while withstanding bending in any direction, and thus allows for easy installation in a 2-inch duct space.

Optical fibre and cable manufacturer AFL has introduced the VHM7000 Series of highly bend-insensitive 50µm graded-index multimode optical fibre designed for harsh environments. With its optimised optical design, VHM7000 Series fibres are engineered to operate under extremely small bend radii down to 7.5mm.

AFL has introduced the TITAN RTD FTTx system, a pre-terminated cabling system that allows for quick and easy subscriber connections anywhere in the outside plant (OSP) network.

The unique product set features AFL TRIDENT hardened fibre-optic connectors and TITAN RTD multiport fibre terminals. The sealed and rugged design of both products provides long-term reliability and allows the products to be placed anywhere in the network – underground, in pedestals, on poles, or on aerial strand or ADSS cables.

OFS used last week’s OFC exhibition in Anaheim, California, to introduce TeraWave SCUBA Ocean optical fibre, which is optimised for 100Gb/s optical transmission and above in submarine cable systems.

Using a combination of the industry’s largest effective area, excellent cabling performance in the C- and L-bands, and low attenuation, the new fibre enables reliable coherent transmission at 100Gb/s and beyond over transoceanic distances at the highest channel counts, the company claims.

Cable maker OFS introduced the latest member of its microcable product line, the MiDia 2GX cable, at the FTTH Conference 2016 in Luxembourg.

The new microcable has been designed for ease of installation in the high-density portion of metro networks. Available with fibre counts of 144, 192 and 288, the new microcable allows even greater numbers of fibres to be installed.

AFL has expanded its Fujikura fusion splicer product line with the Fujikura 62S, an active core alignment splicer designed for exceptional splice loss performance and reduced splice time.

With a conventional flip-open wind protector and non-motorised tube heater, the complexity of the splicer is reduced without compromising total cycle time. The auto-start feature for the splicing and tube heating process reduces the number of necessary steps to process splices.

BTX Technologies, a value-added distributor and manufacturer of video signal processing products, announced today that they are introducing HDMI cables for ultra-high definition video applications in a variety of lengths from 5m to 100m.

These new fibre-based assemblies are lightweight and perfect for tight spaces, floor boxes and where traditional transmitters and receivers can’t be used because of power or EDID issues. They support high definition (1080p) and ultra-high definition (4K) video, deep color (48-bit), 3D and multi-channel digital audio on a single cable.

Fibre specialist OFS has expanded its terrestrial long-haul product line with the addition of TeraWave Ultra Low Loss (ULL) fibre, which is a large effective area fibre with better than 0.17dB/km loss at 1550nm.

Aiming at the growing market for terabit transport, TeraWave ULL fibre is an ultra-low-loss version of the TeraWave product family, which has been designed with large effective area to improve the performance of long-distance coherent systems.

US Conec, a developer of optical interconnects, has unveiled the new MTP-16 multi-fibre optical connector at ECOC 2015 in Valencia, Spain. The MTP-16 connector offers the highest density physical contact for multi-fibre connector format on the market today, the company says.

“Comprised of the proven US Conec MT Elite ferrule technology, the MTP-16 connector hardware is ideal for structured cabling applications supporting parallel or duplex links that require low insertion loss,” said Shelly Buchter, product manager at US Conec.

To meet the challenges associated with escalating data rates and the ongoing need for higher bandwidth in the data centre, CommScope has introduced SYSTIMAX cabling and connectivity products based on its LazrSPEED 550 WideBand multimode fibre (WBMMF).

CommScope demonstrated the capabilities of the new fibre alongside Finisar’s new short-wavelength division multiplexing (SWDM) transceivers at OFC 2015. The emerging WBMMF standard enables up to four times more bandwidth at longer distances than standard multimode fibre.