Purchase Guide of Media Converters

Media converter is an Ethernet transmission media conversion unit that exchanges short distance twisted pair electrical signals with long distance optical signals. It is also called fiber converter in many places. The product is generally used in the actual network environment where the Ethernet cable cannot cover and optical fiber must be used to extend the transmission distance, and is generally positioned in the access layer application of broadband MAN; For example: HD video image transmission of monitoring security project; At the same time, it has also played a huge role in helping to connect the last kilometer of optical fiber line to the MAN and the outer network.

As the media converter is one of the regional network connector equipment, it must consider the compatibility with the surrounding environment, as well as the stability and reliability of its own products.

In actual procurement, an important factor for enterprises to consider is price, especially for small and medium-sized enterprises. We believe that products worth several hundred yuan can meet the needs of ordinary enterprises, except for special industries, such as telecommunications and military. Of course, in addition to the price, we must also consider the compatibility between the product and the surrounding environment, as well as the stability and reliability of the product itself. Otherwise, no matter how low the price is, it will be useless to buy it. In order to enable you to select good media converters, some key points for purchase are listed below:

(1) Port function test: it mainly tests whether each port can work normally under 10Mbps, 100Mbps duplex state and half duplex state. At the same time, test whether each port can automatically select the highest transmission speed and automatically match the transmission speed of other devices. Because some chips on the market can only use a full duplex environment and cannot support half duplex. If they are connected to a network switch or hub (HUB) of other brands and use half duplex mode, serious collisions and packet loss will be caused.

(2) Compatibility test: mainly test the connection ability between the media converter and other Ethernet compatible devices (including network card, HUB, network switch, optical network card, optical switch). It is required to be able to support the connection of compatible products. The types of media converters on the market are complex. If the compatibility of media converters of different brands has not been tested before, packet loss, long transmission time, fast and slow will also occur.

(3) Transmission performance test: mainly test the packet loss rate when the media converter optical port transmits different data packets, and the connection speed at different connection rates. The packet loss rate can be tested with the test software attached to the network card. Under different connection rates, the packet loss with a packet size of 64, 512, 1518, 128 (optional), 1000 (optional) bytes, the number of packet errors, and the number of packets sent and received must be more than 2000000. You can use software such as perform3 and ping to test the transmission speed. In this respect, we can also see whether it has a security device to prevent packet loss. Because many manufacturers often use the Register data transmission mode to reduce costs when making media converters. The biggest disadvantage of this mode is that the data transmission will be unstable, resulting in packet loss. The best way is to use the buffer line design, which can safely avoid packet loss.

(4) Check whether the product has been tested for temperature, because the media converter will generate high heat when it is used, and its installation environment is usually outdoors, so whether the media converter can operate normally when the temperature is too high (no more than 50 ° C). The maximum allowable working temperature is a very important factor for users!

(5) See if the product complies with IEEE802.3 standard? If the media converter complies with the IEEE802.3 standard, if it does not comply with the standard, there must be a compatibility problem.

(6) Measure the after-sales service provided by the manufacturer. Imagine that if your equipment breaks down and the manufacturer fails to solve the problem for several days, your loss will be very heavy. So in order to make the after-sales service respond in a timely and early manner, we suggest that you choose a professional company with strong strength, high technical strength and good reputation in the region. Only the technical engineers of professional companies have rich experience in troubleshooting, and the tools for detecting faults are more advanced!

(7) When purchasing the media converter, carefully observe the appearance of the product to see whether the optical fiber module shell of the product is old, shiny or worn. Nowadays, many manufacturers in the market have used second-hand or old optical modules on media converter, optical switch and other equipment in order to make huge profits. The products using these second-hand optical modules have caused great hidden dangers to network transmission, such as: the optical path of the optical module is polluted, which will definitely affect the signal transmission, and the transmission quality will decline. However, the drop of transmission quality will also reduce the sensitivity of reception and also cause packet loss. In addition, with the use of second-hand optical modules, the service life will also be discounted, and parts will fail at any time.

Summary: Media converter is a cost-effective solution for connecting optical fiber and copper cable in the network. Media converter can realize photoelectric conversion (electro-optical conversion) to extend the transmission distance, while media converter used for connecting network between optical cables can realize single multi-mode, single double fiber and wavelength conversion. Due to the wide variety of media converters, they can be used in different environments. Therefore, when selecting a suitable media converter, you should fully consider your network needs and the above factors.