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Fiber Optics

PLASTIC OPTICAL FIBER (POF)

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Fiber Optics

Plastic optical fiber (POF) has always been "lurking in the background" in fiber optics, a specialty fiber useful for illumination and low speed short data links.

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Fiber Optics

There is now a greatly increased interest in POF, as R&D has given it higher performance to go along with its ease of installation and low cost.

Plastic optical fiber (POF) (or Polymer optical fiber) is an optical fiber which is made out of plastic.

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Fiber Optics

Traditionally PMMA (acrylic) is the core material, and fluorinated polymers are the cladding material.

Since the late 1990s however, much higher-performance POF based on perfluorinated polymers (mainly polyperfluorobutenylvinylether) has begun to appear in the marketplace.

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Fiber Optics

The perfluorinated polymer fibers are commonly used for much higher-speed applications such as data center wiring and building LAN wiring

Due to the attenuation and distortion characteristics of the traditional PMMA fibers they are commonly used for low-speed, short-distance (up to 100 meters) applications in digital home appliances, home networks, industrial networks and car networks (MOST).

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Fiber Optics

MOST (Media Oriented Systems Transport) is a high-speed multimedia network technology optimized by the automotive industry.

It can be used for applications inside or outside the car.

The serial MOST bus uses a ring topology and synchronous data communication to transport audio, video, voice and data signals via plastic optical fiber.

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Fiber Optics

MOST technology is used in almost every car brand worldwide, including Audi, BMW, Hyundai, Jaguar, Land Rover, Mercedes-Benz, Porsche, Toyota, Volkswagen and Volvo.

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Fiber Optics

POF has been called the "consumer" optical fiber because the fiber and associated optical links, connectors, and installation are all inexpensive.

Plastic optical fiber has emerged as a low-cost alternative to traditional copper cabling in office, home and automotive networks.

Continued growth for POF is estimated to be worth in excess of $1 billion per year by the end of 2008.

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Fiber Optics

POF has seen an emergence in lighting applications.

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Fiber Optics

Consumer demand for POF applications has increased in the retail markets as well.

POF CEILING

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Fiber Optics

TOSLINK (from "Toshiba Link") is a standardized optical fiber connection system.

Also known generically as an "optical audio cable", its most common use is in consumer audio equipment the optical signal is a red light, with a peak wavelength of 650 nm, 5 to 6 MHz for a cheaper plastic cable.

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Fiber Optics

POF is also a cost effective solution for a home fiber network using IPTV.

The speed of the PON system is currently 100 Mbps and 1 Gbps home optical networks are anticipated in the future. The maximum distance for a home optical line is approximately 40 to 100 meters.

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Fiber Optics

Until recently, light sources didn’t exist to drive POF to its full potential. With the introduction of these higher speed light sources, such as those provided by Firecomms, POF is used in high-speed car and home networks.

POF competes with copper wires, coaxial cables, glass optical fibers, and wireless, providing a high bandwidth, substantially lower installed cost, high tolerance to electromagnetic interference, easy termination, and light weight.

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Fiber Optics

POF can be deployed by a home builder, either a professional or a do-it-yourself installer, using very basic tools.

POF offers simple connectivity which makes installations simple, easy, quick and far more straight-forward than other copper and optical networking technologies.

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Fiber Optics

POF is so quick, easy and inexpensive to install that it will reduce the cost of truck rolls for broadband service providers.

UNIVERSAL POF CUTTER

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Fiber Optics

IPTV termination using opticlock connectors.

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Fiber Optics

It’s just a matter of time that fiber, glass or plastic becomes more prevalent in both the residential and commercial markets.

FTTH (fiber to the home) and FTTD (fiber to the desk) have been slow in coming to fruition, in many instances FTTD has been installed but left dark.

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Fiber Optics

Glass markets are limited to telecommunications: long distances, high capacity, high speeds.

POF covers many industries such as automotive, consumer, industrial controls, medical, interconnectors, and home networking.

POF applications such as automotive have large volumes (10s millions) that insure economies of scale. There are no such markets in Telecommunications.

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Fiber Optics

Copper has a well established base, there is a reluctance to change and the technology continues to improve (CAT 7, 10G etc.)

BUT

Copper links become more complicated at higher speeds.Copper runs out of speed at 20 Gbps+.Copper transceivers require more power.Copper size and weight are becoming issues.Copper prices continue to increase.

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Fiber Optics

POF is used in;

Consumer home networking, IPTV, Aerospace Aircraft, Military, Surveillance, Data Centers, Supercomputers and Interconnects.

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Fiber Optics

Plastic Optical Fiber (POF) is extremely reliable and rugged, which has led to its recent adoption in the residential, commercial and industrial networking market.

With super fast data rates of up to one Gigabit per second and assured high service quality levels, POF is the most robust technology for 100 Mbps optical fast Ethernet and next 1 Gbps optical gigabit Ethernet networks.

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Fiber Optics

POF offers all advantages of Glass Optical Fiber (GOF) without any of its challenges.

POF is also ideally suited for delivering high-bandwidth emerging applications like IPTV and other triple play services.

POF MEDIA CONVERTER8 PORT POE SWITCH

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Fiber Optics

At the ultra-thin diameter of 1mm and 2.2 mm, POF can be easily deployed in new construction or retrofit installations, either inside wall cavities in the same ducts of electricity cables or outside the wall along baseboards, under carpets or anywhere cables are typically run.

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Fiber Optics

POF is an extremely rugged and durable technology that can bend and flex without any loss of service, loss of bandwidth or damage to the cabling.

This makes POF ideal for deployment in all types of construction.

POF transmits data optically, which makes it completely immune to electrical noise.

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Fiber Optics

This means that POF can be installed even next to electrical wiring.

This is an important advantage of POF for bandwidth-intensive applications, like multimedia data transmission, as the signal delivered over POF will not degrade or be negatively impacted by external noise.

POF CABLE

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Fiber Optics

Currently, POF can be used for point-to-point links up to 75 meters for 100 Mbps with 0.5NA cables, and up to 100 meters for 100 Mbps with more powerful POF cables with 0.3NA.

Repeaters that extend the optical network are also available

POF REPEATERS

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Fiber Optics

Troubleshooting is quick and easy, as POF uses a visible eye-safe red light to transfer data from one device to another.

POF is the only interconnecting technology allowing signal to be seen at both ends, which makes troubleshooting very easy: a quick glance inside the cable will indicate successful connectivity to the network, shown by a red light.

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Fiber Optics

One of the biggest advantages in today's complex and congested world of networking is that fiber is totally immune to electromagnetic interference (EMI) and RFI (radio frequency interference).

Just as important, it emits no radiation, a major benefit given all the wireless networks that are present today in the home and office.

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Fiber Optics

Here is a comparison of glass fiber and plastic fiber.

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Fiber Optics

The future of POF looks promising and has already made an impact in other industries.

Delivering 100Mpbs over 100 meters (328 feet) puts it right up there with CAT 5e and 6, which means it may eventually be implemented as a FTTD solution.