The FOM-8220 provides complete electrical isolation for 2 independent channels of both 10BASE-T and 100BASE-TX Ethernet communications. The card incorporates an automatic MDI/MDIX switch over capability that allow users to use either a straight or crossover cable for all LAN configurations.
The card can be used in areas of high electrical noise or in and out of RF shielded enclosures. The fiber optic cable is not susceptible to interference caused by impulse noise, crosstalk, or EMI. Privacy of communications is also enhanced because the fiber optic cable does not radiate any emissions.
In addition, fiber optic cable offers much longer transmission distances than twisted pair copper wiring. Traditional 10BASE-T and 100BASE-TX Cat5 cabling is limited to a maximum distance of 100m, but multimode optics on the card can extend the distance to 2km, while singlemode optics can further extend the distance to 20km. A typical link consists of two FOM-8020, one at each end of the network, with a duplex fiber optic cable between them.