SAVING MONEY AND SPACE WITH CWDM (December 2011)

As our fibre optics become more popular than ever before, we are delighted to announce that we can now provide CWDM lasers – allowing you to get multiple signals through one fibre and saving you money and rack space.

CWDM (coarse wave division multiplexing) allows many signals to be transmitted down a single fibre link by using a different wavelength of light for each signal.

Most popular for long-haul applications, the system requires the use of different lasers on each output device and an optical combiner, while at the receiving end a splitter will separate out the different signals based on the colour of light.

Crystal Vision has chosen to get involved with CWDM both because of increasing demand from customers and because the SFP modules have become available from our suppliers.

The ITU (International Telecom Union) standardised the wavelength spacing for use in CWDM systems (ITU-T G.694.2) to allow interconnection between different manufacturers’ products, and we can provide lasers of different wavelengths which comply with this standard. The output wavelengths defined by ITU are 1270, 1290, 1310, 1330, 1350, 1370, 1390, 1410, 1430, 1450, 1470, 1490, 1510, 1530, 1550, 1570, 1590 and 1610.

With 18 frequencies available, it means you can potentially put up to 18 signals into one fibre by cascading combiners.

So for which Crystal Vision products is CWDM available? As well as the FTX 3G fibre optic transmitter, CWDM lasers are available for use with any products that can be fitted with a FOP fibre output option to provide integrated fibre output connectivity. These products are currently the Up-Down 3G and Up-Down-S 3G range of up/down/cross converters, Q-Down-AG 3G down converters, SYNNER-E 3G synchroniser, TANDEM 3G embedder/de-embedder, Safe Switch 3G 2 x 2 clean switch, AVDELAY 3G audio/video delay, CoCo 3G colour corrector and ARC-20MC aspect ratio converter.

By fitting the appropriate CWDM laser you can take the output signal from the Crystal Vision product and combine it with signals from other sources down one fibre.

To request CWDM lasers for the FTX 3G or FOP, please contact Crystal Vision on sales@crystalvision.tv or +44 (0)1223 497049 and tell us the specific wavelengths you require.