* Conference dedicated to plastic optical fiber
There is a conference coming up in Santa Clara, Calif., called POF World West 2006 that could be interesting.
“POF” is plastic optical fiber, and there is an initiative under way to bring 10Gbps throughput to POF. The POF World conference will focus on how to use POF for Ethernet, up to 10Gbps. The conference Web site promises to review developments in fibers, components and applications for POF and Ethernet. The conference runs June 21-22, and will be preceded by a day of tutorials related to POF.
One tutorial, from Homefibre Managing Director Josef Faller, will focus on POF for home networks and small businesses, comparing the technology to wireless and other technologies.
This tutorial explores the use of POF for home networking and small business (SOHO). There will be a presentation on potential architectures using POF, POF installations for fitting the needs of homes and small businesses. POF will be compared with other possible wiring options including hard wired and wireless. The tutorial will also include a discussion of presently available components for POF home and small business networks.
Keynote addresses are expected from Cisco and Lawrence Livermore National Lab. Thomas Scheibe, transceiver group manager at Cisco, will talk about 10G in the enterprise, while Mark Seager of Lawrence Livermore’s Integrated Computing & Communications Department will discuss “Requirements for High Speed Data Links For Peta-Scale Simulation Environments.”
Prof. Gary Grimes of the University of Alabama at Birmingham is scheduled to give a presentation comparing POF to glass optical fiber and copper in economic terms for Gigabit networks. Hmm, I wonder which will come out on top? At any rate, it would still be interesting to hear his perspective.
Also, Reichle & De-Massari will introduce and demonstrate a media converter that converts signals on Category 5 copper wiring to POF. It can take a 10/100Mbps Ethernet signal and then transmit it over 50 meters of POF.
