Shiverpeaks S/CONN maximum connectivity fibre optic duplex patch cable SC/SC 50/125µ, OM5, lime green, 20.0m

OM1 to OM4 fiber optic cables can only transmit wavelengths of 850 nanometers. As a result, data can only flow in one direction. Therefore, at least two fibers are always required: one for sending and one for receiving. This applies to data rates of up to ten gigabits per second. At higher data rates, such as 40 to 100 gigabits, the data streams are divided into packets of ten during transmission and reassembled at the receiver. The technical term for this is "parallel optical transmission." Thus, for the transmission of 40 gigabits, four fibers are needed for sending and the same number for receiving, totaling eight. For 100 gigabits, 20 fibers are used accordingly.

An OM5 cable combines Short Wave Division Multiplexing (SWDM) and Wideband Multimode Fiber (WBMMF) technologies. Older multimode fibers are optimized for the wavelength range of 850 nanometers. With SWDM technology, wavelengths between 850 and 950 nanometers can be used for transmission. OM1 to OM4 fibers can only operate within a single wavelength range. For this reason, WBMMF is additionally required for the OM5 standard. This allows multiple wavelengths to be transmitted, enabling data rates of up to 400 gigabits per second. As a result, OM5 has a better bandwidth-length product, which describes how many oscillations can be sent losslessly over a certain distance with a fiber optic cable before the signal needs to be refreshed.

The OM5 technology, like the previous OM1-OM4 standards, is suitable for cables up to 150 meters in length. These cables are used, for example, in high-performance servers, data centers, or building cabling.