HANSUN Based on current developments of media converters, network designers and engineers are making efforts in both technologies and functionality.
Lower Costs: Power consumption is much valued by users especially for large data centers, as lower power dissipation means lower design prices and power costs, which is what engineers have been working at. Moreover, the port number of media converter needs to be added, which can save costs for large networks dealing with a mass of devices. Additionally, the continual developments of optic fiber technologies will also reduce the cost of media converters to some extent.
Higher Data Rates: Current fiber media converters are mostly 10/100/1000Mbps, and some vendors provide 10G converters. 10G media converters have SFP+/XFP ports, allowing faster network access over longer distances and offering more possibilities for connecting devices and users to your network. This is mainly used in large data centers now, but higher data rates will also be required by more users for network upgrades in the future.
Smarter Functions: Current managed media converters are capable of network monitoring, fault warning through the network management platform, but unmanaged media converters are not intelligent enough, which is controlled through the DIP switch. Thus breakthroughs should be made in this regard. What’s more, troubleshooting and auto negotiation need to be improved. As many media converters are transparent to the network or often located at remote sites, when problems occur in cabling, troubleshooting can be difficult for network managers. In addition, network managers often upgrade some equipment or deploy hardware with higher data rates in an attempt to future-proof their networks. Thus better auto negotiation can help to solve compatibility issues.
