Although the Universal Serial Bus (USB) interface is currently the most popular connectivity option in most desktop and portable computing systems, it does have its shortcomings, the most important such issue being related to the the distance limitation of the USB cables. And in order to solve this issue, the people over at Gefen have launched back in the second half of 2007 the Gefen USB – 400FO, a device that allows users to extend around 100 times the normal range of such an interface.



Thus, according to Gefen, the USB- 400FO extends any USB device up to 1,650 feet (500 meters) from the location of your computer with the help of a multimode fiber optics cable, eliminating the 17.5 feet (5.33 meters) distance limitation of USB. Moreover, the USB-400FO also includes a remote 4 port USB HUB to operate up to four USB devices remotely using "Extreme USB" technology



The device from Gefen works in a fairly simple manner. Thus, the USB-400FO sender unit is connected to the computer using the supplied USB cable. The extended peripheral(s) are connected to the receiver unit. Two multimode LC fiber optic cables are used to link the the sender to the receiver with HUB.



The USB-400FO provides support for both low-speed and high-speed USB devices, and is compliant with the USB 2.0 specification, which means that it can attain a maximum data transfer rate of around 480 Mbps. Furthermore, it uses two different types of USB connectors, namely a type B for input and a type A for output.



The adapter will occupy quite a small amount of space around the user's office, as it measures around 4.75 x 1.75 x 5 inches (12 cm x 4.45 cm x 12.7 cm), at a weight of around 0.5 pounds (0.226 kilos). Moreover, as most other products from Gefen, the USB-400FO is extremely expensive, as it retails for around 1,599.00 US dollars, which is a huge price to pay for such a system, despite of its obvious advantages.