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Why? This can be explained simply. Fiber optic cables are easier to install, are lighter than traditional copper cables, are much smaller than their electronic counterparts, and most importantly, they have much more bandwidth!
Because fiber optic cables are lighter, they are easier to pull through existing ducts and cable raceways. Other big advantages of fiber cables including their immunity to electromagnetic interference, longer repeater distances, lower power requirements, and higher flexibility.
All the above pros make fiber optic cables very attractive and most important of all, very cost effective.
The unstoppable trend for fiber optic applications are the move from the long haul (long distance) to our desk, our house, and our office. The terms include FTTC ( fiber to the curb), FTTD (fiber to the desk), FTTH (fiber to the home) and FTTB( fiber to the building).
Fiber optic cables enable our dream of integrating all our phone, Internet and TV services. Fiber's wide bandwidth makes this possible. It provides more than enough capacity to meet all our voice, data and video requirements.
The transformation from copper to fiber is greatly accelerated by the invention of optical fiber amplifiers. Optical fiber amplifiers enable optical signal transmission over very long distances without the expensive process of conversion to electronic signals, electronic amplification and the conversion back to optical signal again as in traditional regenerators.
Today most of the network traffic switching are still performed by electronic switches such as those from Cisco. But tremendous interest and effort of using all-optical devices for all network switching are accumulating in the industry. The most important characteristic of all-optical switching lies in its almost unlimited transmission capacity.
However, it is still in the prototype stage for controlling light with light, so optical switch circuits are still controlled by electronic circuits at this moment. The switching matrix may be optical circuits but the control are still done by electronic circuits.
Optical fiber is almost the ideal medium for signal transmission available today and in the foreseeable future. The excellent characteristic of optical fiber is its immunity to electromagnetic interference. Optical circuits can be crossed in a common space without cross interference among them.
But there are problems which are impeding the speed of all-optical system development. The most obvious and basic reason is the compatibility requirements with legacy fiber optic systems.
Another big advantage of optical fiber lies in the ability to multiplex its capacity via WDM (wavelength division multiplexer). WDM modulates each of several data streams into a different part of the light spectrum. WDM is the optical equivalent of FDM (frequency division multiplexer). The use of WDM can increase the capacity of a single channel fiber optic communication system by hundreds of times.
In additional to communication systems, fiber optic technologies are also widely used in medicine, illumination, sensing, endoscopy, industry control and more.
The Principle of fiber optics is based on transmission of data by means of light. Concept of fiber optics was first conceived by Claude Chappe in 1790's. His idea for fiber optics was based on an optical telegraph concept invented by Graham Bell also tried the means to send information by the atmosphere but did not succeed. Finally, fiber optics emerged with the onset of new era based on the principle of total internal reflection which is a distinct quality of light rays.
Fiber optics emerged and grew into more advanced phase due to requirement from radio and telephone engineers. These engineers required more bandwidth for data transmission. Thus these engineers had been looking out for a medium to transmit data in more reliable and faster form rather than copper cables. They also wanted to avoid the hazards of electric shocks and interference which were a constant problem of copper cables.
Fiber optics had attracted some attention because they were analogous in theory to plastic dielectric waveguides used in certain microwave applications. Finally a technology evolved that used glass or plastic threads to transmit data. Cables involved in fiber optics contain several bundles of glass threads which are capable of transmitting data in modulated form.
With the onset of fiber optics and fiber optic cables data started to transfer faster as fiber optic cables have greater bandwidth than metal cables and are more resistant to external interference. Lighter and thinner fiber optic cables readily transfer data in digital form rather than analogue form. This technology is most useful in computer industry which now forms an integral part of telephone, radio and television industry.
Telecommunications applications of fiber optics use flexible low-loss fibers, using a single fiber per optical path. Along with the communication industry fiber optics plays an important role in medical and industrial applications also. Many medical appliances like endoscope use the principle of fiber optics. Industrial applications viz. in television industry use the principle of fiber optics to obtain flattened images in cathode ray tubes.
Fiber optics yield distortion free data transmission in digital form. The audio waves transmitted via principle of fiber optics deliver accurate signal transfer. Fiber optics is also useful in automotive and transportation industry. Traffic lights, organized and scrutinized highway traffic control, automated toll booths, etc. are some of the benefits of application of fiber options in the transportation mechanism.
Cable TV companies and Internet Service Providers equivocally find fiber optics indispensable in their industry. Fiber optics provides tamper free, high bandwidth and larger data carrying capacity to the service providers. This eventually leads to better consumer satisfaction.
Unlike copper wire system fiber optics do not use and electrical form to carry data. The use of light gives a competitive edge to fiber optics over regular data transmission options. But eventually use of fiber optics is very expensive as compared to copper cabling system.