For most setups, cables with 12, 24, or 48 cores are common choices, ensuring compatibility with modern equipment and ease of management. The number of optical cores in an optical fiber is the total number of equipment interfaces multiplied by 2, plus 10% to 20% of the spare quantity, and if the communication mode of the equipment has serial communication and equipment multiplexing, you can reduce the number of cores. The number of. In fiber optic cables, data is transmitted as pulses of light that travel along a thin strand of glass or plastic fiber. The light is typically. One key factor is the number of cores, which impacts how much data you can transmit.