Nowadays, popular fiber optic cable has multiple uses. Basically, all the major telecommunications distribution networks are built on this technology. Different optical, analog and/ or digital signals can be transmitted through fiber optic cables. They allow massive and long distance communications, the transmission distance depending on the power of the equipment mounted at their ends.
Fiber optic cables can have one or more wires. The models nowadays have 2, 4, 8, 12, 24, 48, 96, 144, or 288 wires. For larger cables, the wires can be grouped together (buffers) having similar coding with the wires. 12 colors are used by this coding system, to allow easier identification of the wires in the cables.
For example, a fiber optic cable with 48 wires can have a structure of 4 buffers with 12 wires each, the buffers having the colors blue, orange, green and brown, and the wires having the colors blue, orange, green, brown, white, gray, red, black, yellow, purple, pink and blue. If, for example, we want to find wire 23 of 48, we will choose the orange buffer and the pink thread. For easier understanding you can look at a table that contains the structure of fiber optic cables. You can also contact IEC to find out even more detailed information about different types of cables and their uses.