Pre-terminated fibre quality

[meastaugh1]

I've used Videk's pre-terminated fibre a few times and have had no problems but am starting to wonder why they are so expensive. I know that Videk tends to be pretty expensive anyway, but I'm wondering what's so special about Videk's 50m 62.5 ST-ST cable compared to this that they charge £100 more. Also, this CMS cable is cheaper still. Any ideas? Edited February 8, 2009 by meastaugh1
Inaccurate costs

[srochford]

The specs look exactly the same so I'm not sure what extra you're getting for your money.

 

If you look at the unterminated fibre from Videk it's a much more reasonable price so it looks as if they're just charging silly money for the termination.

 

It used to be really time consuming (= expensive) to terminate fibre (lots of polishing and so on) but now it takes seconds so the charge isn't really justifiable any longer.

 

I'd give Videk a ring and see if they can reduce the price; if not, I'd buy from one of the other companies.

[Jake_Gully]

We use CMS on a regular basis, their fibre charges are reasonable, but you might get a better price from Auriga (/url]).

 

Termination connectors have moved on quite a lot since ST - for multimode fibre (OM1, OM2, OM3) we generally spec LC or SC connectors - these give lower insertion losses and can connect directly to SX GBIC - the old style standard GBICs are SC connectors, whilst the smaller SFP GBICs use LC connectors).

 

To be honest 50m isn't a great length, so you could get away any grade of multimode and type of connector, especially in what appears to be a big patch lead. If you wanted to run longer distances >200m or possibly run 10Gbit I would recommend OM3/3E fibre.

 

regards - Jake