Sumitomo Electric Lightwave has introduced its new dry Flexible Indoor Plenum Rated Ribbon Cable, the industry’s first with up to 432 fibers. 

Sumitomo Electric Lightwave engineers designed the cables to improve fiber density and ease of installation in the enterprise network. The 432 fiber plenum cable has a diameter of only .850 inches for space savings within  data center and network applications.

For improved ease of installation, the new plenum ribbon cable features a dry central tube design for fast, no mess, splicing plus a non-preferential bend axis. Its all dielectric cable construction eliminates the need for grounding or bonding.

As with all 4th Level® ribbon cables, the 432 fiber plenum cable also features Sumitomo’s patent protected Easy Split and Peel™ technology that eliminates the need for special tools, allowing the installer to peel back the ribbon quickly and easily by hand to expose the underlying color coded fibers. This exclusive ribbon design increases the speed with which fibers can be either fusion spliced or terminated with MPO splice-on connectors for cost effective real-time and on-site cable builds.

“Sumitomo’s expertise and leadership in ribbon fiber design and manufacturing has led to the development of the most advanced and reliable data center and enterprise network ribbon cables,” comments Bill Charuk, senior data center product manager at Sumitomo Electric Lightwave.  “We continue to strive to bring new and better solutions for our data center and enterprise network customers through continuous innovation and staying ahead of the curve of rapid technology change.”

The new 432 fiber flexible plenum rated ribbon cable meets or exceeds NFPA 262, National Electric Code OFNP, RoHS, CSA FT-6, and ICEA S-83-596 approvals and listings. The cables are available in all multimode and single-mode fiber types including bend insensitive SMF.