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A fiber optic transceiver is a device that uses fiber optical technology to send and receive data. The transceiver has electronic components to condition and encode/decode data into light pulses and then send them to the other end as electrical signals. To send data as light, it makes use of a light source, which is controlled by the electronic parts, and to receive light pulses, it makes use of a photodiode semiconductor.
Techopedia Explains Fiber Optic Transceiver
Data can usually travel only one way in a fiber optic cable, so most transceivers have two ports for bidirectional communication: one for sending and the other for receiving signals. Alternatively, a single cable can be used, but it can only send or receive data at a time but not both. The opposite end of the transceiver has a special connector for fitting it into specific models of enterprise-grade Ethernet switches, firewalls, routers and network interface cards. A modern fiber optic transceiver is a small device because it is intended to plug into the aforementioned network devices; this type of transceiver is called a small form-factor pluggable transceiver.
As with most devices, there are many kinds and models of transceivers available, which range in size, performance and price.
