You're probably familiar with T1 lines and similar service. T1s are to OC192 what squirtguns are to firehoses. Clocking speeds of 9.8 gigabytes per second, the OC192 is well over 5000 times as fast as a T1 line, and just as divisible.

OC192 is a fiberoptics network cable. The "OC" stands for Optical Carrier, and the number refers to the level in the digital signal range. The number is in proportion to data rate. Multiply n x 51.8Mbit/s to get the data rate for any optical carrier cable. The speed of an OC192, nearly 10,000Mbit/s (10 gigabit) at the top range, is as fast as the internet commonly gets.

There are many, many speeds of optical carriers in use today, but the OC192 is used especially as the backbone for larger ISP services. Why? Because currently this is the most common very high speed optical cable available for use today.

There are other faster ones in development; specifically, OC768 is currently being rolled out by AT&T. However, for long-distance transmission, OC192 is still the fastest available cable. Cost for this sort of cable is often very high, well into 6 figures just for wiring. For this reason, the OC192 cable is not feasible for anyone who does not have monthly phone and data transmission bills into the six figures as well.

As you can see, the OC192 is designed for either very large companies or for companies and organizations that depend heavily on data communication of any sort in the daily course of business. These companies will realize significant savings from using OC192 cabling and transmission capabilities, and reduce the complexity of their phone system currently in place.

If you are looking into purchasing OC192, make sure you ask your prospective carrier about free local and long distance included in on your network; this perk may save you enough to be worth the cost.

Other organizations that may find the OC192 cable appropriate for their business application are those that depend on realtime video transmission. Universities, for instance, that run distance learning courses may realize significant savings by broadcasting classes online rather than via cable, and reach more students.

Ethernet connections to an OC192 cable are generally WAN-PHY; LAN-PHY does not work without some sort of translation, so if you're unsure and your office is already wired with LAN-PHY, the cost of retrofitting should be figured into the base cost of the cabling.

Otherwise, OC192 can be configured and scaled to fit your company's needs today and tomorrow. You can blend data types with no problem, and even companies and organizations with large campuses will find an OC192 system to be an excellent and reliable backbone with no data loss when properly wired.