OM4 fiber is a 50 µm laser-optimized fiber with extended bandwidth. It will be used to enhance the system performance for existing 1 and 10 Gbit/s applications as well as future 40 and 100 Gbit/s systems.
OM4 fiber will support Ethernet, Fibre Channel, and OIF applications, allowing extended reach upwards of 550 meters at 10 Gbit/s for ultra long building backbones and medium length campus backbones. With an laser bandwidth of 4700 MHz-km (more than double the IEEE requirement for 10 Gbit/s 300 meter support), the OM4 fiber is also especially well suited for shorter reach in data centers and high performance computing applications.
In use at low data rates such as 100 Mbit/s or 1 Gbit/s, OM4 is on par with the OM2 or OM3 fibers. The OM4 fiber shows their true strengths at data rates of 10 Gbit/s and 40 Gbit/s with ranges of 550 meters or 300 meters.