Advantages of Ribbon Cable

What is Ribbon Cable?

The exact name for ribbon cable is fiber optic ribbon, which consists of flat ribbons. This is achieved by making a series of individual fibers and laying them down and bonding them to each other. Using this technology, up to 24 fibers can be combined. The fibers are usually placed side by side to form flat ribbons.

It is then held in place using a special waterproof tape material. This process uses only coated fiber optics, which helps provide extra space when working on the network. This type of fiber optic cable is often one of the solutions whenever installers apply in tight installation spaces such as many data centers. Thanks to the ribbon cable design, splicing is easier, saving time and money.

Ribbon cables are described by a number of international standards organizations, including the International Electrochemical Commission (IEC) and the Insulating Cable Engineers Institute (ICEA). Fiber optic ribbons are specified as part of the IEC 60794 series of specifications and ICEA Fiber Optic Cable documents, which are American National Standards approved by ANSI. The external factory fiber and cable specifications for GR-20-CORE relate to the fiber and ribbon cables mentioned in this document.

Features and Benefits of Ribbon Cables

The first advantage of ribbon patch cords is that they save time and reduce installation costs. Because the cables are pre-bundled (typically consisting of 12 individual fibers), installers and technicians can more easily and quickly perform high-quality splicing, allowing all fibers in a ribbon matrix to be stitched together simultaneously. This means less installation time, lower installation labor costs, and faster recovery from downtime.

A secondary benefit of ribbon cables is the increased fiber density in a given cable. Of particular importance is fiber density, an attractive feature and benefit as the number of fibers in a data center increases.

Disadvantages of Ribbon Cable

Conventional fiber optic cables bend smoothly in all directions—within proper bend radius specifications, ribbon fibers have a restricted plane of motion, but can only bend along their longitudinal axis. This is called "preferential bending" - because the cable only likes to bend along the axis of motion. The orientation of the ribbon structure inside the cable cannot be controlled, so any bends in the ribbon fiber may be perpendicular to its longitudinal ribbon axis, which may stress the fiber. This can damage the fiber optic cable and cause insertion loss (loss of signal power).

Ribbon Cable Applications

Ribbon cables can be used in indoor FTTH networks and indoor/outdoor point-to-point applications, as well as interconnection and crossover applications in MTP fiber optic junction boxes; 12-core flat fiber optic cables are one of the most widely used ribbon cables, 12-core ribbon fiber patch cord Can be terminated with LC or SC connectors, such as simplex, duplex or MTP connectors can be easily terminated; ribbon fiber patch cords can also be stitched with loose tube cables. The specific method is to remove the coating of the ribbon optical fiber jumper, and then splice 12 optical fiber fuses together in batches.

However, ribbon fiber is not always the best choice indoors: when indoor ribbon fiber is shipped to cabinets, handling fiber optic cables for termination becomes challenging. In fact, some say that many ribbon cables feel like "rods of iron" when machined. As you can imagine, this can make installation difficult. Even though the termination process is faster, the complexity of routing these cables to cabinets and racks saves time because the cables take a long time to install.

Difference Between Ribbon Cable and Loose Tube Cable

Ribbon and loose tube look different. Ribbon cables are mostly flat, while loose tube cables are bundled cables, which are mostly round. The structure is different. Ribbon cables consist of fiber optic ribbons, while loose-tube cables typically consist of 0.9mm ferrules.

Different fiber arrangements. The ribbon-shaped optical fiber jumpers inside the optical fiber are arranged in color sequence and bundled in a relatively fixed form. The fiber bundle jumper inside the fiber is not set, and each fiber is relatively independent.