Fiber Patch Cable Color Code: The Complete Guide

Fiber Patch Cable Color Code is a really important part of our telecom industry, why you may ask?.

Because it could help us identify individual fibers, fiber patch cables and fiber connectors, it's really important to know how to differentiate a multimode patch cable from a single-mode patch cable one, and the only way to do it its by the marking in the cables and the color code. 

Colored outer jackets or print may be used on Premises Distribution Cable, Premises Interconnect Cable or Interconnect Cord, or Premises Breakout Cable to identify the classification and fiber sizes of the fiber.

In Beyondtech, we created one image with all the color codes of the fibers, with the RGB codes we use in our manufacturing process. And with this chart, we could know exactly what kind of fiber we are using, of course using the TIA-598C.

What about outdoor cables, both multimode and single-mode have a black colour designed to protect from damage of the solar exposure and UV light, but there's always a mark in the cable in where you will find the core of the cable.

Inside the outdoor loose tube cables, you find also a color coding in the insides tubes, the below-attached chart can be pretty helpful, especially when using the fiber optics break-out kits.

According to the FOA: Since the earliest days of fiber optics, orange, black or gray was multimode and yellow single mode. However, the advent of metallic connectors like the FC and ST made connector colour coding difficult, so coloured strain relief boots were often used.

The official document that defines the TIA/EIA Colors are in the Munsell’s New Color Coding Chart-Reference for Specifying Wire and Cable Colors.