What is the difference between CWDM and DWDM?

July 19, 2024

Background

Both concepts are based on optical fiber. So we need to understand some basic information about fiber optic cable.

It is a non-metallic cable that transmits information in the form of light pulses through glass or plastic strands.

A standard fiber cable consists multiple layers a core, cladding, buffer tube, and jacket.

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As we just introduced, it is via the form of light pulses to sending and receiving information.

The light rays hit an interface, reflect off, bounce down the core of the cable repeatedly till it reaches to the other end.

Total internal reflection occurs in this process.

As this photo shows, there are different bands in a standard optical fiber cable.

For each band, light attenuation and light dispersion features vary a lot.

In real world, there are three main wavelengths used for fiber optics—850nm&1310nm for multi-mode and 1550nm for single-mode.

Comparison

Let’s look at the concepts of CWDM and DWDM in the context of the above knowledge.

CWDM stands for coarse wavelength division multiplexing and supports up to 18 wavelength channels, with each channel typically separated by 20nm.

DWDM is short for dense wavelength division multiplexing with relatively dense wavelength spacing that is typically between 0.2 and 1.6nm.

Both use fiber-optic networks to send multiple signals across a single strand of fiber cable using different wavelengths of light.

And we can see that the sharp differences are the number of channels and wavelength spacing.

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