Then you can get competitive bids. Since the plan will call for a certain number of fibers, consider adding spare fibers to the cable . That way, you won't be in trouble if you break a fiber or two when splicing, breaking out or terminating fibers. And request the end user consider future expansion. Most users install lots more fibers than needed, especially adding singlemode fiber to multimode fiber cables for campus or backbone applications.
All cables share some common characteristics.
They all include various plastic coatings to protect the fiber, from the buffer coating on the fiber itself to the outside jacket. Bigger cables with more fibers usually have a fiberglass rod down the middle for more strength and to limit the bend radius. Zipcord is simply two of these joined with a thin web. It's used mostly for patch cord and backplane applications, but zipcord can also be used for desktop connections. These cables are small in size, and used for short, dry conduit runs, riser and plenum applications.