FiberPlex Technologies Introduces the WDM16 Active Wave Division Multiplexer

FiberPlex Technologies, LLC, a secure fiber optic communications company, has released the WDM16, 16 channel active wave division multiplexer.

A key feature of the WDM16 is the active operation, according to the company. Unlike other CWDM devices on the market, the WDM16 does not require optical wavelength matching. This allows users to use standard off-the-shelf equipment without worrying about having to have equipment operating at specific wavelengths. The WDM16 provides 16 Small Form Factor Pluggable (SFP) ports that can be loaded with any sort of optical laser of any speed or mode. The WDM16 allocates the individual wavelengths for the CWDM by taking each input in (from 155MB to 2.5GB), regardless of wavelength, internally translating that wavelength to the assigned wavelength internally in the WDM16 for that channel, and multiplexing up to 16 of these channels for a maximum of 40GB on a single fiber. The WDM16 is perfect for use with the FiberPlex FOM series modules, FiberPlex Shadow enabled devices, or virtually any third party fiber optic equipment. It is equally at home as a stand-alone system, according to the company, allowing the user a quick, easy and economical way to increase the bandwidth of existing fiber optic infrastructure, or to limit the amount of fiber infrastructure necessary in any new construction where adding more fiber is cost prohibitive.

Available fully redundant, hot swappable power supplies provide reliability. Redundancy is carried even further to the channel level. Any single channel can fail without taking down the whole unit. Additionally, the default failure mode of the communications microprocessor is to have all channels operate and fans run full.

Wave division multiplexing can free up coveted fiber pairs, when dark fiber is scarce, and in new or retrofit installations it can provide considerable savings compared to the labor costs to pull new or extra fiber runs.