What is 10BASEF? Definition and brief description of 10BASEF by Certiology

10BASEF

The 10BASEF is an Ethernet standard that employs the use of optical fibers in order to extend the limits of the distance up to 1.2 miles compared to the up to 100 meter distance of the 10BASET copper wires. The stations are all in a star configuration connected to a repeater or central concentrator using ST or SMA connectors.

The standards for the 10BASEF consist of three different standards that describe different media specifications. The first of which is 10BASEFB, this standard defines how the synchronous data transmission is sent over the fiber-optic cable.

With the 10BASEFB segments you can decide to cascade or link the fiber-optic hubs into longer configurations than the traditional 10BASET Ethernet networks. They can also contain up to 1024 stations. Even though this is a better configuration, it is more expensive and is not as widely implemented as the 10BASEFL. The second is the 10BASEFL. This defines the link between the nodes and the hub.

The 10BASEFL replaces the older standard for the fiber-optic link segments. The 10BASEFL is the most commonly implemented version of the 10BASEF. The last standard is the 10 BASEFP which defines the implementation of a star topology which does not use repeaters. 10BASENP stands for fiber passive. The segments of which can only be 500 meters and can only have 33 stations connected. This is rarely used with today’s technology.

In use the 10BASEF is more widely used for environments that are electronically noisy rather than the 10BASET. Using too many connectors in a segment of fiber-optic cabling can cause the attenuation to exceed 12.5 decibels which is the max signal loss that is acceptable. If you are going to use the 10BASEF you will want to keep this in mind during the initial planning of the configuration.

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