While routers, switches, and transceivers often have upgrade cycles of 3 to 5 years, properly installed and maintained fiber cabling systems can last 15 years or more — spanning multiple hardware generations. Fiber optic cables are a critical component in modern networks, with their performance directly affecting the stability of data centers and enterprise networks. Effective lifecycle management of fiber optic cables, from selection and installation to daily maintenance and replacement, is essential. Fiber optic connectors are classified by the number of insertion/extraction cycles according to IEC 61755-2-1: In a residential FTTH installation where the patch cord is almost never disconnected, the 500 cycles are never reached over 20 years.
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