What You Need to Know About Single Mode and Multimode Optical Fibre

You may be upgrading your data center so that you use only optical fibre cables, but you do not want to be bothered by the differences between the available types of optical fibre. Read on and learn the basics of the two kinds of optical fibre so that you can have a meaningful interaction with the installer or supplier of the products that are going to be used during that upgrade.

Multimode Optical Fibre

This was the earliest form of optical fibre that was designed to transmit data in the form of light pulses. A "mode" refers to one electromagnetic wave moving through a fibre. Multimode fibres therefore allow more than one electromagnetic wave to move through the fibre simultaneously. Optical fibre cables of this kind are best suited to transmitting data over short distances. This is because the multimode optical fibre cable has a larger core, so electromagnetic waves will bounce a lot and lose fidelity (clarity) quickly. That is the reason why such cables are used to wire local area networks (LANs). These cables are easier to couple or connect to other cables due to their large core diameters.

Single Mode Optical Fibre Cables

These optical fibre cables have a narrow core, so only one electromagnetic wave can travel along their path at a time. This type of cable was developed to address the weaknesses that had been noticed in the multimode cables. The narrow core of the cable limits how much the mode bounces about as it travels along the length of the cable. This helps the mode to retain its fidelity over a longer distance, so these cables are ideal if you want to move data over