Fiber Optic Cabling: Components and Best Practices

First of all, fiber optic cabling contains strands of glass fibers, each slightly thicker than human hair, inside an insulated casing. 

Each strand’s center is called core and works as the pathway for light to travel, with the help of cladding, a layer of glass that surrounds it and reflects light inward to avoid loss of signal.

There’s also the plastic/rubber boot (which starts the transition from the cable to the connector) to support bendability to the case to prevent strains on the cable, as well the connector,  a plugin/ locking mechanism grabbed onto when installing or removing the cable.

Last but not least, the ceramic, plastic, or stainless-steel ferrule is the outgoing portion of a fiber connector used to house the end of the fiber to align with the transceiver or another fiber.

While single-mode fiber generates light through thin glass strands and lasers; multi-mode optical fiber cables use LEDs for the same purpose.

Maybe you’ve read or heard this already. Might even be the reason why you’re here today.

But compared to wired cables, fiber optic cabling is made for long-distance, and to provide high-performance data networking and telecommunications (higher bandwidth and transmit data).

Fiber optics support higher network bandwidth capacity (up to 100 Gbp/s) and strengthen the signal, also making it less susceptible to interference. 

Now, the only downside is the fragility of its glass. This is why companies that distribute fiber optic cabling ship out the product in one piece with plenty of preparation. “Fragile” alerting stickers are the very least you’ll see on its packaging material 

This is why, we also want to mention some of the best practices for handling fiber optic cables, because you’ll definitely need to handle these with care.

Will you or someone else take care of its installation? Doesn’t matter. You better leave the cables inside the box and boxes in a safe place until they’re ready to be used, to avoid potentially damaging situations.

Once that you take the fiber optic cables out of the package and start the installation, make sure to leave the end-caps that protect them until you will plug each cable into the transceiver or patch panel.

They’re built to protect the most sensitive part of the fiber, so once the glass runs through its center, it immediately gets exposed to the surrounding contaminants.

Have you been tempted to pinch or kink the fiber cable for some reason? You better don’t, because it will cause the glass to snap.

In the case you’re doing the installation yourself: don’t forget to follow the manufacturer’s recommendations. 

But remember LayerLogix is here in the case that you can’t install the fiber optic cabling on your own.

We’ve been doing it for a long time now, with high success and customer satisfaction rate.