Re: Low cost WDM gear

[Simon Lockhart <simon () slimey org>]

> That's why I engage the engineering resources on their end to make sure the
> chosen candidate will support the use case. I have now performed an A/B
> comparison and the FiberStore gear is inferior. Excessive loss on the mux
> and optics.

Just for comparison sake, I should say that we've bought passive DWDM muxes and
SFP+'s from FibreStore, and we've had good experiences.

At the lower end of the market, production quality can definitely vary, which
means significant variances in optical losses. When we ordered from FibreStore,
we specified the Optical Loss values that we were able to accept. They tested
the muxes before shipping, and selected the ones which fitted our requirements.

Out of all the SFP's we bought, there were one or two DoA. FibreStore replaced
this without issue.

I think the important thing to remember (particularly when buying "cheap") is
that you need to know what you're buying, and what the risks are. With this in
mind, it's possible to save money and get a decent product with some careful
specification and management of the purchasing process.

If you're not too sure what you're after, then I'd suggest spending more money
and buying from a supplier who's more set up to hand-hold you through the
process.

Simon