Question about Fiber Media Converters

[Adom Doledas]

So here's my situation. I have a 12Mbps fiber internet connection (yes, I'm currently in Vietnam so network infrastructure here is still quite slow and bad).

The line into my house follow this model:

Outside fiber line -> Fiber ODF (dual fiber FC ports out) -> Dual patch cords FC to SC port with FC plugs hooked into the ODF and the SC plugs hooked into a fiber/ethernet media converter (below the SC port it says 100Base-FX single mode fiber type) -> Ethernet RJ45 out from the converter (100Base-TX aka 100Mbps Ethernet) -> my router's WAN port.

The converter looked like a no-name one (I did some research and finally found out that it was from a China manufacturer named BC Optics, model BC-100DSO13-20). So I wanted to upgrade it. I did a lot of research about fiber stuffs, then I purchased a TP-Link Gigabit Media Converter (MC210CS), which looked like to have the same specs with my current one (dual SC port input with the same wave length of 1310nm running in single mode, ethernet out), except for the gigabit part. The BC Optics one was 100Mbps, the TP-Link was 1000Mbps, as I had thought that faster was always better and it could fall-back to 100Mbps at anytime if the link wasn't running at gigabit speed, just like those 1000Mbps NICs and switches running through CAT5E or CAT6 cables.

Unfortunately the Tp Link converter one didn't work, which made me frustrated cause I spent a lot of time and effort to learn about it and find a retail store to buy that kind of device in my area.

A guy told me that it looked like the fiber line that carrying signal into my converter used 100Base-FX standard of signal so I must find converters that fit it, and unforetunately I had purchased the TP Link converter right before I learned that 100Base-FX fiber signal can't be plugged into a 1000Base-LX port. Or to be more precise, it CAN be PHYSICALLY plugged in due to the use of the same type of port, but it WON'T work technically.

My questions are:

1. Can you connect a 100Base-FX signal based fiber plug into a 1000Base-LX signal based fiber port. Looks like they CAN'T, even if they share the same connector type (i.e. SC type), signal wave length (i.e. 1310nm). But I need confirmations and some easy to understand technical explains if some one can.

2. Do media converters make differences in terms of quality when it comes to fiber connections. For example do better converters give better latency (lower ping), or give your connection better stability etc...

My line is upgradable to 45 Mbps in the near future so I really want to find out.

Thanks for your time reading this and helping me. XD

 

[bill001g]

Pretty much the gig ones only run at gig and the 100 ones only run at 100. They may use the same light frequency and fiber but they are completely incompatible. Same would happen if you put a 10g interface in. Why they do not run at multiple speeds I don't know but I have never seen any that can do more than 1 speed. They are pretty stupid devices they pretty much just turn the laser on and off at a fixed rate to indicate the bits.

Fiber pretty much either works or it does not. The latency is based on the distance and the speed of light. The converter only delays it a tiny bit as it converts the signals from light to copper you likely can't measure it.

You should be fine all the way to 100m with the converter you had.

 

[Adom Doledas]

Hi Bill, thanks for your answer, so as you state it the fiber converter just translates the optical signal into electrical signal which is transferable through RJ45 port and there's no difference at all when it comes to quality... But why Perle or something company does have quite some "super expensive" (well, to some $450+ is) converters, which is 30 times more expensive than the one I'm using right now, yet share the same key features.

Yes the high-end components in their converters pushed up the price a lot, but is it worth it to upgrade to a better converter? I mean I'm not going for Perle of course, it's not like I'm running a crazy business or my network system is always stressed and so, but I really want to know that do better converters help? Sure that better components has higher stress threshold (operating temperature, ability for long-time operation etc...), and as you said it's no help with the latency, but does it increase data reliability since better components might cause less loss?

Sorry for my long and stupid-look-like questions but please help XD

 

[bill001g]

Although in theory there could be some difference between equipment most follow standards. So when it says things like LX or SX or EX this means it meet the standard for distance and compatibility. Generally you can mix and match these between vendors and they all work.

Hard to say if there are better components in the equipment or you are just paying for a brand name in some cases. I would suspect the only difference would be how long the equipment would last and then I would suspect you are going to lose the power brick first. Not sure it was just about 2 month ago I toss a huge box of 10m and 100m fiber media converters that I bet were 10yrs old and still worked. They had the old ST type of fiber connectors.

These stand alone converter boxes are fairly rare now that everyone is using 1gig or 10gig over their fiber. Most times you just put a optical module in a switch. Many of the gig converter boxes are 2 port switches anyway. You can get cheap switches with optical ports cheaper than a 2 port media converter...why I don't have a clue.

In general what I have seen with the 100m boxes when we used them years ago once we got them up and running they were never touched again until we shut the location down. I never saw errors, either the fiber worked or it was down. About the only issue with the 100m stuff is the half/full duplex. That tends to be a big pain. Fiber can only run full duplex but the converter boxes allows half duplex on the copper port so many times it would get a mismatch on the remote ends. Lucky 1g and 10g only can do full duplex so that problem is gone.