To meet surging market needs for fiber optic cable product, more and more fiber optic cable manufacturers emerges to gain its market share. Fiber optic cable is a necessity for most households. How to keep a balance between price and quality? And how to select a reliable fiber optic cable manufacturer? As the representatives of reputable fiber optic cable manufacturers, Monoprice, C2G and FS.COM are frequently recommended by many users. This article would give a brief introduction to those three companies and analyze the difference between their fiber optic cable.

Five years ago, Monoprice was associated with two things: HDMI cables and nerds. Being able to tell people about two-buck Monoprice cables, and to explain, with confidence, why Monster cables were a scam, was one of the wonderful small privileges of geekdom; today, it's one of the dwindling few. Its cables were cheap! They worked fine! The company was based in the U.S., processed orders quickly, had a return policy and answered emails. It was like eBay without the risk.

Founded in 2002 and propelled by word-of-mouth support — the company rarely advertises — Monoprice is now a $120m-a-year business. Monoprice CEO Ajay Kumar says the company has been growing at between 25% and 35% a year for the last five years. The office and shipping operations run out of a 173,000 square-foot warehouse in Rancho Cucamonga, California. Kumar credits Monoprice's early rise to one thing. "The primary focus early on was cables," he says, "and the thing that really accelerated the company was HDMI." For the fiber optic cables, they offer a wide range of them, singlemode, multimode and etc.

C2G (formerly Cables To Go), a division of Lastar, Inc., is an industry leader in high performance cabling and connectivity solutions. Founded in 1984, the company provides end-to-end connectivity solutions serving a variety of markets—including hospitality, education, healthcare, corporate, home theater and digital signage. C2G also delivers customized connectivity products and solutions renowned for superior quality, value, and innovation using premium components and the latest technologies to maximize cable performance and ensure compliance with industry specifications for each cable and its designated application. Fiber optic cabling and hardware products including single mode and multimode fiber patch cables of 62.5/125, 50/125, and 9/125, and fiber distribution products used in high tech networking.

Founded in 2009, FS.COM gradually becomes a leading company devoting to research & development, and offer fiber connectivity network solutions for carriers, ISPs, content providers and networks. With a few years of development and accumulation, FS.COM have owned a whole series of optical communication products including the WDM equipment, transceivers, fiber optic assemblies, racks & enclosures, bulk fiber cables, enterprise network and so on.

Their fiber optic cable products are offered at the lowest price and fully compatible with the original devices. They assured to every customers that every fiber optic cable offered by FS.COM before shipping has to go through strict test to assure high performance. They cover a wide range of fiber optic cables, such as bulk fiber cables, fiber patch cables, MTP/MPO fiber cable, fiber cable assemblies and etc.

Price is paramount for every customers when they are purchasing. We can’t list all the products from their website and compare them here. So let’s take the 1m OS2 9/125 singlemode fiber optic cable as an example, the C2G 1m OS2 9/125 singlemode fiber optic cable is sold at $42.99. Monoprice is only $11.35. The price of 1m OS2 9/125 singlemode fiber optic cable from FS.COM is $2.8. You can check it on the below table.

Both FS.COM and C2G offer a full range of fiber optic cable that are of performance. While monoprice, nowadays do not have many selections of optical modules. But if you need HDMI, video or power cables, you can definitely have a look at their website.

FS.COM is known as the cost-effective optical transceiver and fiber optic cable manufacturer that offer high-quality and low price products. Monoprice is mostly recommended for its HDMI, video and power cables. C2G’s price is a little bit higher, but their quality is nice.

Oznake: fiber optic cable manufacturer, fiber optic cable

We may quite familiar with indoor fiber optic cable, because it is an indispensable part of our daliy life. But for outdoor fiber optical cables, there are many factors needed to be considered, such as Ultraviolet, specific environment and etc. Different outdoor fiber optic cable matches for different environment. So what are they? And how they apply? This article would put emphasis on introducing the following four types of outdoor fiber optic cable, both singlemode fiber outdoor cables and multimode fiber outdoor cables are fully covered.

Aerial outdoor cable

Aerial outdoor cable is a kind of fiber optic cable, which is designed to be easier to install and faster to terminate than loose tube cables. 900-µm tight-buffered cables (one kind of aerial outdoor cable) are UL riser- and plenum-rated fiber optic patch cable, which are specially suited for duct and aerial installation points. No transition points are required at the building entrance.

The construction of this kind of fiber optic patch cord consists of color-coded buffered fibers surrounded by water-swellable aramid-strength members and a ripcord under an overall UV-resistant, flame-retardant black jacket. Bundles of six or 12 fibers are used for cables with fiber counts over 24. A water-swellable tape barrier provides additional water-blocking to protect the interstices from axial moisture migrations. Cables are available with fiber counts ranging from 6 to 48. Distribution cables include a selection of 62.5/125 µm and 50/125 µm multimode outdoor cables cables and singlemode outdoor cables enhanced.

Dry water-blocking outdoor cables

Being exploited by a dry water-blocking technology, dry water-blocking outdoor cables are designed to withstand harsh outdoor conditions. This kind of fiber optic cable is suitable for use within buildings, for outdoor installations or transitional aerial and duct applications, and for entrance facilities that require riser- or plenum-rated cable. An all-dielectric construction requires no grounding or bonding, while an armored cable construction has interlocking aluminum armor that eliminates the need for innerduct or conduit. The RoHS-compliant cable is available in singlemode (meets OS1 and proposed OS2 standards) and multimode (OM1, OM2, and10-Gbits/sec laser optimized OM3) types, and in fiber counts up to 144. This kind of fiber optic patch cable is an optimal choice under harsh environment.

Plenum outdoor cables

Plenum outdoor cables are flame-retardant and suitable for aerial, duct, riser and plenum installations. No transition splice is required when entering the building from a dedicated outside plant cable. Part of the company's LANs solutions, these cables feature 250-µm color-coded fibers for simplified identification during installation. The loose tube design provides mechanical and environment durability, and the cable's all-dielectric construction requires no grounding or bonding. This kind of fiber optic cable is available with 12 to 60 fibers and in 62.5- and 50-µm (including laser-optimized) and singlemode fiber outdoor versions, along with a flexible, flame-retardant, UV-resistant jacket.

Outdoor cable for factory

Featuring a proprietary pressure-extruded (core-locked) tightly bound outer jacket that firmly binds all fibers together so that the cable moves as a solid, rope-like unit, these tight-buffered cables are suited for industrial applications. This kind of fiber optic cable is designed with flex resistance of thousands of cycles, crush resistance of 2200 N/cm, the ability to withstand 1,000 impacts, and tensile load rating exceeding a ton. They are also constructed to withstand caustic and volatile chemicals, excessive moisture and fungus, UV exposure, and operating temperatures ranging from -55to 124. They are perfect options for factory environment.

Oznake: fiber optic cable, single mode fiber outdoor, fiber optic patch cord, fiber optic patch cables

As known to all, the fiber optic cables are divided into two types: singlemode and multimode, based on a completely different core diameter and mode of transmission. Singlemode fiber optic patch cables are called 9/125. This indicates the glass core is nine microns in diameter. The “125” is the size of the core plus the cladding (125 microns). Singlemode fiber optic patch cables can further be divided into simplex and duplex. This article would put emphasis on singlemode simplex and singlemode duplex fiber patches.

The ends of fiber patch are connected with connector plugs for connection of light circuit activity. If the cable has only one end terminated with connector while the other end ended with fiber, and then it is called pigtail. As we mentioned, the singlemode and multimode are two types of fiber patch cable. The diameter of the singlemode fiber core is 8Ľm~10Ľm. Fiber core is rounded with glass cover of lower refractive index than that of the fiber core, keeping the fiber inside the core. Outside the glass coating, it is a layer of thin plastic coating to protect the coating.

Compared to multimode fiber, singlemode fiber has a small loss in the long transmission distance. The potential of singlemode fiber's bandwidth makes it the only option for high-speed and long-distance data transmission. Simplex and duplex singlemode fiber cables are the further classification of singlemode patch cables. Simplex means this cable is with only one thread of fiber optic glass inside the single core. Duplex fiber cable can be regarded as two simplex cables, either singlemode or multimode, having their jackets conjoined by a strip of jacket material, usually in a zipcord (side-by-side) style. In the following figures and charts, we would give two groups of comparison about OS2 LC LC fiber patch cord (singlemode simplex and duplex) according to different polish type (UPC and APC).

Figure1: LC/UPC-LC/UPC singlemode simplex patch cable Vs. LC/UPC-LC/UPC singlemode duplex patch cable

Chart1: LC/UPC-LC/UPC singlemode simplex patch cable Vs. LC/UPC-LC/UPC singlemode duplex patch cable

Figure2: LC/UPC-LC/UPC singlemode simplex patch cable Vs. LC/UPC-LC/UPC singlemode duplex patch cable

Chart2: LC/UPC-LC/UPC singlemode simplex patch cable Vs. LC/UPC-LC/UPC singlemode duplex patch cable

According to the above pictures and charts, we figure out the differences between LC/UPC-LC/UPC singlemode simplex patch cable and LC/UPC-LC/UPC singlemode duplex patch cable, and between LC/UPC-LC/UPC singlemode simplex patch cable and LC/UPC-LC/UPC singlemode duplex patch cable based on the detailed parameter. In the simplex fiber patch, data is only supported in the one direction while the duplex patch allows the data to transmit in two directions.

Therefore, duplex communication is the combination of simplex single communications which requires that both sender and receiver have the independent ability of transmitting and receiving. Singlemode fiber patch cables are the best choice for transmitting data over long distances. They are usually used for connections over large areas, such as college campuses and cable television networks.

Oznake: LC to LC fiber cable, LC to LC fiber patch cable single mode, fiber optic cable, lc lc fiber patch cord