Cable that packs fibers into ribbons of 12 bonded with matrix material, stacked in a central tube or slotted core, reaching counts of several thousand fibers. The payoff is mass fusion splicing: a ribbon splicer joins all 12 fibers in one cycle, cutting splice time several-fold on big closures. Rollable or loose-bonded ribbons fold into a compact bundle and still lay flat for splicing.
It's a 1728 ribbon, so we're mass-fusing twelve at a time, figure ten minutes a ribbon including the heat cycle.
Also heard as
- ribbon fiber
Related terms
Fusion splicer
The instrument that aligns two fiber ends, welds them with an electric arc and estimates the splice loss.
Fusion splice
A permanent joint made by melting two cleaved fiber ends together with an electric arc.
Fiber color code
The fixed sequence of twelve colors that identifies each fiber and buffer tube in a cable.
MPO
Multi-fiber Push-On: a single connector that terminates 8, 12, 16 or 24 fibers in one rectangular ferrule.