The FOI-4141 and FOI-4411 both provide complete electrical isolation for RS-232 communications. The units are transparent to all handshaking protocols and can accept data and clock signals up to a maximum rate of 1 Mbps. A regeneration switch on the FOI-4141 allows users to toggle between synchronous applications that require Send Timing (ST) and asynchronous or synchronous applications that require Terminal Timing (TT).

The units 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 “T” units for high security applications because they have been TEMPEST tested and approved.

In addition, fiber optic cable offers much longer transmission distances than traditional RS-232 cabling. Multimode optics on the units can extend the distance to 2km, while singlemode optics can further extend the distance to 20km. A typical link consists of an FOI-4141 at the Data Communication Equipment (DCE) and an FOI-4411 at the Data Terminal Equipment (DTE) with a duplex fiber optic cable between them.