Media Converters

Media converters provide the possibility of connecting components to each other via different media. The most frequently occurring case for this is the conversion between twisted pair (TP) and fibre optic cabling.

When using media converters it has to be observed that a connected port operating in half duplex mode is no collision domain border. This is often not considered when using optical fibres to bridge a larger distance. The fibre optical port of a media converter furthermore does not support the auto negotiation function. Due to this, if an Ethernet component is directly connected to the fibre optic side of a media converter, the transmission mode has to be set fixed according to the component connected on the twisted pair side. If a connection between two twisted pair components is established using two media converters, it is absolutely required that both twisted pair components are operating with the same transmission mode. If necessary, manual setting has to be performed.