Draka upgrades multimode fiber cabling portfolio with bend-insensitive technology

Draka Communications is upgrading its range of UC-branded fiber cabling products with OM3 and OM4 multimode technology to bend-insensitive fiber technology.

For cable shipments beginning April onwards, MaxCap-BB-OM3/4 technology will be included as a standard feature of the cabling system, as well as bend-friendly replacements for OM2 assembly and distribution cables.

“Bend-insensitive technology represents a huge boost in functionality and quality for IT managers; we are taking this leadership position to raise the standard of all LAN and data center cabling,” says Carsten Fehr, EMEA marketing manager, Draka Communications. “Our decision delivers real value for end users as well as installers looking to future-proof cabling infrastructures.”

“This is effectively a free bend-insensitive upgrade for our customers. It will eventually result in end-users enjoying higher reliability data centers, lower downtime and maintenance and savings in racks and housings thanks to higher cabling density,” Fehr adds.

Bend-insensitive fiber technology provides recognized, measurable benefits in LAN and data center cabling, such as increased spare system margin that improves 10G and higher network reliability. It also stimulates the possibility of new, reduced-size cable designs that are lighter in weight improve cooling efficiency, and offer reduced environmental footprints--supporting the evolution to greener data centers.

Fiber deployment is growing exponentially in data infrastructures with storage, server, and edge devices moving in the direction of 10Gbps speeds and beyond, a core network now needs to support much higher data traffic speeds. It has lead to the development of 40GbE and 100GbE standards, designed to address short reach transmission, through parallel transmission over multimode optical fiber cabling, with significant cost advantages over LAN WDM when compared with the use of singlemode optical fiber.

In parallel to the continued evolution of OM4 multimode fiber standards, bend-insensitive fibers have been developed to enable more compact cable cabinets , reducing ownership costs. Additionally, smaller diameter flexible cables increase cabling density, alleviating the pressure that massive optical cabling puts on installation practices by eliminating bending as a critical factor for data signal loss.