IRVINE, Calif.: L-com, an Infinite Electronics brand and a preferred manufacturer of wired and wireless connectivity products, announced today that it has introduced a new series of active optical cables to address high-speed data centers and enterprise networking applications.

L-com’s new active optical cables (AOCs) are hot swappable, pluggable cable assemblies that support high-speed Ethernet, InfiniBand and Fibre Channel connectivity (10Gbps-100Gbps). AOCs are opto-electronic devices used in place of standard fiber optic transceivers due to ease of deployment and lower cost compared to using individual transceivers with separable fiber optic cable assemblies.

Although they use the same electrical interface as Direct-Attach Cables (DACs), AOCs utilize fiber optic cable instead of copper wiring so they are able to support distances up to 100 meters. Furthermore, DACs are limited by crosstalk since they utilize copper cabling and generally cannot support distances over 10 meters.

“L-com’s new active optical cable line offers the widest variety of data rates supported, off-the-shelf lengths and same-day shipping since all of these new cables are in-stock. This is a key differentiator from our competitors, who either do not offer all the data rates we offer, or do not have product in-stock ready to ship the same day. Also, we do not require large MOQs, single cables can be ordered, which is another great benefit for our customers,“ said Paul Hospodar, Product Manager.

These new active optical cables are available off-the-shelf in lengths ranging from 1 meter to 100 meters (model dependent). Integrated transceiver types include SFP+, SFP28, QSFP+ and QSFP28, offering blazing fast server-to-server, server-to-switch and server-to-router connectivity in enterprise networks and data centers.