Thanks to technological innovations and standards defining cabling systems and applications, 12-fiber MPO/MTP-based fiber optic systems have become very popular in data centers. These systems include basic components such as trunk cables (pre-terminated cables with MTP connectors at both ends) or fan-out modules (MTP on one end and LC on the other). CC cabling systems have confirmed the advantages compared to traditional solutions, which include splices, LC-to-LC cable assemblies, or individual patch cables.
Today, most 8/10/16G systems operate using a serial (duplex) channel, with the LC interface being the most common. This is not the case for 40/100G, and the growing popularity of parallel channels and matrix connectors using MTP/MPO technology is well known. For LAN applications, this requirement is based on MTP-8 (an MPO-based connector with 8 fibers), which is used in 40GBase-SR4/100GBase-SR4 (under development), and MTP-20 for 100GBase-SR10-based optical modules.
However, due to the growing demand for higher data speeds, HUBER+SUHNER is increasingly supplying optical cabling solutions based on the 24-fiber version of the MTP® connector (MTP-24), specifically designed for use in data centers and LAN/WAN infrastructures.
IT infrastructure requires upgrades every 5 to 7 years on average, if not sooner. New computer equipment places new demands on the network infrastructure. Therefore, when upgrading the existing network infrastructure, future costs can be optimized by planning a migration path from LC-based (traditional) connectivity to an MTP-based infrastructure. This is only feasible if pre-terminated MTP cable assemblies are used as the system foundation from the outset.
