optical fiber connectors
What you should know about optical fiber connectors for hubs, switches, cables and adapters :
The MT-RJ type connector
is the new youngster and up to now it is rarely used because of its short availability, it is from 1998/99. HP-Agilent announces in mid of 2001 that they have sold 2.5 million transceivers. It is a full duplex connector with twin wire cables. You cannot mistakenly exchange the send and receive lines.
- the connector at the end of the line
- the transceiver inside the switch or router
This excellent small formfactor adapter is made for professionals and desktop use with very high port densities in backbone switches. There is a homepage www.mtrj.com built from the mt-rj consortium, where AMP/Tyco and Agilent (formerly HP) are the most known ones.
The SC type connector
is the most used one and has become really cheap. It is well used with Ethernet 100 Mbit and Gigabit and with all kind of ATM from 2 Mbit up to 622 and more. We have never seen half-duplex single wire connections, but full duplex twin wire cables.
The disadvantage from the view of a professional is, you allways have the wrong plug in the worng port, because you have two plugs for a duplex connection and there is no standard color for send and receive.
The advantage is, you do not need streight and crossover cables. You can test yourself if it works or not.
- SC to SC
- MTRJ to SC
The ST type connector
is an old technology (from 10Mbit) more rarely used because of its coaxial bajonett connectors. We have never seen half-duplex single wire connections too, but full duplex twin wire cables.
The disadvantage from the view of a professional is, you allways have the wrong plug in the worng port, because you have two plugs for a duplex connection and there is no standard color for send and receive. The connector itself is heavy metal and expesive.
- ST sample end
- fddi to ST cable
The LC type connector is
still missing good explanation, sorry.
The FDDI type connector
is more and more leaving the market because FDDI is out.
