The latest in multimode fiber, OM5 (or wideband MMF) has a lime green jacket and supports multiple wavelengths (WDM) at high speeds, allowing four channels of at least 28 Gbps each across the 850–953 nm range. Multimode fiber is a common choice to achieve 10 Gbit/s speed over distances required by LAN enterprise and data center applications. This is made possible by its relatively large core diameter, typically 50 or 62. 5 microns, compared to the ~9-micron core in single-mode fiber. The wider core accepts light from. This guide explains the five generations of multimode fiber - OM1, OM2, OM3, OM4, and OM5 - covering their physical characteristics, color coding, bandwidth, maximum distances at different data rates, optical sources (LED, VCSEL, SWDM), and real-world applications in enterprise networks and data. ISO/IEC 11801 defines the OM1, OM2, OM3, OM4, and OM5 types of multimode fiber. In the two tables above, we've summarized the main differences between OM1, OM2, OM3, OM4, and OM5. These differences include the maximum distance and speed. In modern enterprise local area networks, campus communication systems, and high-density data center infrastructure, multimode optical fiber acts as the core transmission medium for short-distance high-speed data connectivity.
