Pluggable Optical transceivers are the basic building blocks of Optical Networks. Their function is to transmit and receive an optical signal over optical fiber. The pluggable part of the optics was a big step forward in flexibility for the optical interfacing of network hardware. Not only did it decimate the model ranges of respective vendors, network architects now got access to a broad range of options in terms of distance, fiber type and pricing.
Pluggable Optical transceivers, or optics, are standardized and can be plugged into various types of hardware such as switches, routers and servers from different vendors. The optical signals that are supported by the transceiver can be of different characteristics depending on the type of network, bit rate and operating distance.