The FOI-4100 provides complete electrical isolation for 100BASE-TX Fast Ethernet communications. The unit has an automatic MDI/MDIX switch over capability that allow users to use either a straight or crossover cable for all LAN configurations.

The unit can be used in areas of high electrical noise or in and out of RF shielded enclosures. The fiber optic cable is not susceptible to interference caused by impulse noise, crosstalk, or EMI. Privacy of communications is also enhanced because the fiber optic cable does not radiate any emissions. FiberPlex recommends “R” units for high security applications because the units have added filtering and shielding for RFI suppression.

In addition, fiber optic cable offers much longer transmission distances than copper wiring. Traditional 100BASE-TX Cat5 cabling is limited to a maximum distance of 100m, but multimode optics on the unit can extend the distance to 2km, while singlemode optics can further extend the distance to 20km. A typical link consists of two FOI-4100, one at each end of the network, with a duplex fiber optic cable between them.