Cisco’s 10/25G CSR Transceiver – Clearing Up A Common Misconception

Written by Craig Pasek and Pat Chou, Product Managers, Transceiver Module Group

We’ve seen that many enterprise customers with multi-mode fiber already installed in their buildings have taken advantage of the benefits of Cisco’s 10/25G CSR transceiver. We’ve also heard a misconception in the industry that we’d like to clear up.

Cisco’s 10/25G CSR is often viewed as a proprietary specification transceiver, as opposed to a standardized specification transceiver. An example of a standardized specification is 25GBASE-SR, released by the IEEE. Many network operators prefer optics based on industry standards because they foster an ecosystem in the transceiver industry that enables competition and multi-source supply strategies.

It’s true that only Cisco offers the 10/25G CSR transceiver. However, because its unique specifications go above and beyond IEEE 25GBASE-SR, it is fully interoperable with any transceiver based on that standard. Therefore, network operators don’t have to give up the benefits of standardization. See the figure below for the various optics that 10/25G CSR interoperates with.

The primary benefit of the 10/25G CSR transceiver over those that only adhere to 25GBASE-SR is that CSR offers longer reach over the same multi-mode fiber. And of course 10/25G CSR is dual-rate.

Learn more about Cisco’s 25G transceiver modules and cables here.

Please see the other blog links below that show additional benefits of the SFP-10/25G-CSR-S and other 25G transceivers:

25G Transceiver FAQ

25-Gigabit Pluggable Transceivers for Data Center Applications

Transforming Enterprise Applications with 25G Ethernet SMF

Meeting enterprise demands with dual rate 10/25G Ethernet

Too Slow? 25G Speeds Up Data Centers and Campus Backbones

And videos:

Video: New 25G Transceivers Are Taking Off

Cisco Live U.S. 2018: 10/25G Dual Rate Cisco Short Reach Optics

Also please see Cisco’s 25G data sheet here.