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Written by Jose Raygoza, Product Manager, Cisco Transceiver Modules Group

Since the introduction of 100G pluggable optics several years ago, a great variety of reaches and form factors became available.

Among the most confusing reaches are the Extended Reach variants. In this blog, we are going to explain what variants are available in the Cisco Optics portfolio, and the differences between them.

100G Extended Reach  

Extended Reach Optics usually refer to optics that can achieve transmission distances of up to 40km over single-mode fiber.

The first 100G Extended Reach variant available in the market in a pluggable form factor was CFP 100G ER4. This variant was based on the IEEE 802.3ba standard, with a power consumption of roughly 24W.

The high power and low faceplate density (due to large size) prevented its use on several applications. So a second Extended Reach variant, known as