Cable Net was great but like any other technology, it’s obsolete.
Cable Net faces Three major problems:
1. Speed Limitations.
2. Distance Limitations.
3. It requires additional hardware to be installed.
Fiber Net can overcome these problems. But first what is Fiber Net?
According to Wikipedia,
An optical fiber or optical fibre is a flexible, transparent fiber made of drawing glass (silica) or plastic to a diameter slightly thicker than that of a human hair.
Fibers are used instead of metal wires because signals travel along them with less loss; in addition, fibers are immune to electromagnetic interference, a problem from which metal wires suffer excessively. Optical fibers typically include a core surrounded by a transparent cladding material with a lower index of refraction. Light is kept in the core by the phenomenon of total internal reflection which causes the fiber to act as a waveguide.
Advantages over copper wiring
The advantages of optical fiber communication with respect to copper wire systems are:
- Broad bandwidth: A single optical fiber can carry over 3,000,000 full-duplex voice calls or 90,000 TV channels.
- Immunity to electromagnetic interference: Light transmission through optical fibers is unaffected by other electromagnetic radiation nearby. The optical fiber is electrically non-conductive, so it does not act as an antenna to pick up electromagnetic signals. Information travelling inside the optical fiber is immune to electromagnetic interference, even electromagnetic pulses generated by nuclear devices.
- Low attenuation loss over long distances: Attenuation loss can be as low as 0.2 dB/km in optical fiber cables, allowing transmission over long distances without the need for repeaters.
- Electrical insulator: Optical fibres do not conduct electricity, preventing problems with ground loops and conduction of lightning. Optical fibers can be strung on poles alongside high voltage power cables.
- Material cost and theft prevention: Conventional cable systems use large amounts of copper. Global copper prices experienced a boom in the 2000s, and copper has been a target of metal theft.
- Security of information passed down the cable: Copper can be tapped with very little chance of detection.
Principle of operation
An optical fiber is a cylindrical dielectric waveguide (nonconducting waveguide) that transmits light along its axis, by the process of total internal reflection. The fiber consists of a core surrounded by a cladding layer, both of which are made of dielectric materials. To confine the optical signal in the core, the refractive index of the core must be greater than that of the cladding. The boundary between the core and cladding may either be abrupt, in the step-index fiber or gradual, in graded-index fiber.
That was a lot of knowledge! So what does it mean to an average individual who isn’t a techie? Simple, faster and cheaper internet. The effects of which we’ve started seeing hit the market.
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