To connect multiple Ethernet switches, the best way is to use a multi-strand fiber cable. The 4-strand pre-terminated fiber optic cable consists of four individual strands or fibers of glass or plastic fibers enclosed in a protective sheath. For example, if you have 10 devices, you'll need at least 20 cores. Evaluate Costs Wisely Higher fiber core counts come with a higher initial. In addition, fiber cables can transmit data over several kilometers without signal degradation, making them ideal for connecting switches in large campus networks and between different buildings. It really depends on total distance as well as what are the specs for each end point device (IE does the switch have 1GB SPF, or 10Gbit or 40? If 10 then you would need 4 pairs to setup in a LAG to get the 40Gbit. (actually use a four core optical cable) This is because apart from one-core optical fiber, there are basically no optical cables with an odd number of cores, such as three-core, five-core, etc. It is worth. While singlemode cable is required for longer distances, high-power singlemode transceivers needed for those long distances are significantly more expensive than multimode transceivers, increasing overall system cost. This is especially true for links longer than 2 km, which use wavelength division. According to the IBDN standard, it is generally recommended to use 12 cores for communication rooms in each building and 24 cores for building rooms. First, clearly understand the number of wiring points, and calculate.