looking to replace fiber transceiver..

tacos4me

Gawd
Joined
Apr 5, 2006
Messages
815
..but i'm lost, hah. don't have enough experience with fiber to even google the answers i'm looking for, so hopefully someone can tell me.

my isp has me set up with a single mode 10/100 startech transceiver (ET90110WDM). now, i've got a big vmware box i just set up for myself, and what i'd really LIKE to do is get rid of that transceiver in favor of a pci-e card in that box.

i mean, is that even possible? is that same transceiver required on both ends? i realize it's utilizing wdm so just a single strand is possible, do ordinary pci-e cards even support this?

i'm pretty clueless with fiber gear. still pretty new to me, living in the sticks and all. glad to have it though. thanks in advance for any help.
 
If the ISP supplied the media converter, I'd say keep using it.
You'd be spending your own money for no gain, IMO.

Also, Looking at that part, if their website is correct it's using 100BASE-FX over Single Mode Fiber - which is a bit of a problem, since 100BASE-FX is supposed to be used with MultiMode Fiber. (up to 1400 ft). I can't find any PCIe card that supports 100 BASE-FX over Single Mode fiber.
 
well, let me explain. it's kind of a stupid situation. i'm one of only a handful of people on my isp's fiber currently. they've been rolling this service out street by street, and haven't made it very far. i was one of the first customers on their fiber network (they actually give me a nice discount having helped test the stability of the service, too). anyway, since i had my install done, they've started installing GPON ONTs elsewhere, and offer up to 400mbit to these customers.

i've been told they are in short supply, and the earliest they'd have one for me is spring/summer. i get 90mbit symmetrical from this converter, but i mean, if there was such a thing as a single mode gigabit pci-e card under $500, i'd be all over it. plus, it'd be one less thing cluttering my rack.
 
I'm pretty sure that's a 100base-BX adapter. I would imagine that there is another one of those on the other side of the fiber you are connected to. Changing it out for a nic wouldn't give you any benefits. If you change it out for something gig, it might not even work. I've never seen a BX that could auto-negotiate between 100/1000. I'm not saying it doesn't exist, just saying I've never seen it.

If you want to continue, and hate money... then you are probably best off buying an intel nic with an sfp slot, and throwing in a 1000 wdm sfp. If it doesn't work then put a 100m wdm sfp in there. What's the worst that could happen? The worst that would happen is that it doesn't work. Or you break the fiber...

-Sean
 
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