What's ribbon cable?

Fiber ribbons are made by joining multiple optical fibers in ribbon form. 

Each individual fiber in a ribbon is aligned in a single row and impregnated with an acrylate UV curable resin. 

These fiber ribbons are stacked into a matrix structure to form a bundle inside a central core tube or in stranded multi-tubes.

Ribbon cables offer higher fiber counts and greater fiber density than any other cable construction designed for the outside plant (OSP), four times the highest-fiber-count loose tube cable. Ribbon cables also enable mass-fusion splicing, whereby each 12-fiber ribbon can be spliced in a single, straightforward procedure. This facilitates fast network installation and restoration after cable cuts.

Ribbon cable has been around for decades, however, the use case for it is becoming more widely accepted and adopted. As we see the demands of bandwidth double the need of fiber, ribbon cable becomes the simplest, easiest, and fastest way to plan for future network needs.

Ribbon cable can be prepped and spliced much more rapidly than similar sized non-ribbon cables. This advantage translates into less installation time, less installation labor cost, and significantly less emergency restoration time.

To splice ribbon cable, normally we could use the ribbon splicer. And the ribbon splicer has also different types of fiber holder in different sitution: 2 fiber, 4 / 8 fiber, 12 fibers. etc.

Nowadays, there are several brands of manufactuer has such ribbon cable splicer. like Sumitomo TYPE-72M12, Fujikura 90R, Ilsintech KR12. 

To select a proper brand within your cost budget, should you need suggestions, feel free to leave your msg.