Media conversion can pay dividends in variety of sectors

The rise of fiber-optic cabling systems in a diverse range of settings is creating an environment in which many types of companies can benefit from the installation of media converters. Among the companies with the most to gain from media converter solutions are in the industrial, mobile or data center sectors.

Media converters in industry
Manufacturing organizations often have large factories where Ethernet systems are becoming more prominent and serial infrastructure is already in place. This can create a major issue when it comes to network configuration. In such a setting, there could be a need for fiber to Ethernet and serial to Ethernet solutions. Serial to Ethernet is almost always necessary because it provides organizations with the ability to make their serial solutions, which are common in industrial control and automation networks, interoperable with Ethernet. This is essential as industrial Ethernet becomes a more common system.

At the same time, organizations in industry also have to consider using fiber to carry data over long distances in large factories or facilities split into multiple buildings on a campus. Fiber to Ethernet solutions are vital in this area.

Mobile providers and media conversion
The rise of 4G mobile data rates is creating more demand for high-performance mobile network functionality. While end users get their bandwidth through radio signals, that data throughput capacity has to come from somewhere. Generally, it comes from a mobile backhaul network. Fiber is necessary in the vast majority of mobile backhaul networks. However, copper-based Ethernet systems are generally used in the actual towers and media conversion is essential in such setups.

Using media converters in the data center
Cloud computing, virtualization, big data and a variety of other technology trends are pushing raising bandwidth needs in the data center. In response, more IT leaders are turning to fiber in backhaul and storage networks. Interoperability is critical in these settings, making media converters a natural fit.

Getting the most out of media conversion
Implementing media converters can do more than just enable interoperability. Some advanced, but still cost effective, solutions are able to provide quality of service functionality and similar sophisticated capabilities. As a result, media conversion technology can be used to support high-performance network functionality in a variety of ways while also simplifying cabling deployment.

Perle has an extensive range of Managed and Unmanaged Fiber Media Converters to extended copper-based Ethernet equipment over a fiber optic link, multimode to multimode and multimode to single mode fiber up to 160km.