In Year Of 2020 How Internet Work: What is optical fiber cable.

What is optical fiber cable.

1. optical fibers are hair-thin threads of glass or plastic used as data transmission medium like copper wires or coaxial cables. however, unlike copper wires or coaxial cables, they transmit light signals instead of electrical signals. As light travels much faster than electricity, optical fibers can transmit data at much higher speed than copper wires or coaxial cable with no significant loss of intensity over long distances.
2. optical fibers are made of glass, plastic, or silica. Plastic fibers are least efficient, but are cheaper and more rugged. Glass or silica fibers are much smaller, and their lower attenuation makes them more suitable for high capacity channels.
3. physically, a fiber-optic cable consists of three concentric layers - inner core, a cladding around it, and outer protective coating. Inner core has a diameter of 8 to 200 micrometers and consists of a bunch of optical fibers. The characteristics of light propagation depend primarily of fiber size. its construction, refractive index profile, and nature of light source. The outer protective coating is made of plastic.
4. the main components of an optical fiber communication system. The sender side electrical-to-light-ware converter converts electrical signals into light signals. It uses wither a light-emitting diode (LED) or a laser diode to convert electric signals into light signals. It then transmits these light waves over optical fiber to receiver's end. The receiver side light-to-electrical-wave converter detects the light waves and converts them back to electrical signals. It uses photoelectric diodes for this purpose. An amplifier then amplifies and sends the electrical signals to the receiver.

Optical fibers have following advantages:

1. Large bandwidth: optical fibers can transmit large volumes of data at very light speed and long distances. they can have 10 to 100 times greater bandwidth than the best coaxial cables depending on the number of fibers bunched in inner core. A fiber-optic cable consisting of a bunch of 10 optical fibers can support more than 200000 voice channels.
2. Low loss: Light signals can travel at much higher speed than electrical signals with no significant loss of intensity over long distance. Hence, any data communication system using electrical signals (such as copper wires or coaxial cables) requires repeaters all short intervals along the way to intercept and amplify electrical signals. light signals also need amplification, but at much longer intervals than that of electrical signals. Hence, an optical fiber communication system does not require signal repeaters at short intervals, resulting in reduced cost.
3. Immunity to electromagnetic interference: Optical fibers are made of glass/plastic. Hence, magnetic or electrical interference, which causes errors in other media (especially in twisted-pair wire) does not effect optical fiber transmissions. Consequently, optical fiber communication system do not require complex error checking and correction mechanisms, which other media that are sensitive of electromagnetic interference require. This reduces the design cost and overhead associated with error checking and correction.
4. Small size and lightweight: Fiber optic cables are much smaller and lighter than copper wires of coaxial cables for example, a fiber optic cable with a core and cladding of 0.125 mm diameter and 305 mm outer protective coating has the same data transmission capacity as 900 twisted copper wire pairs with an 8 cm outer diameter and weighing 100 times more. size and weight are important factors when considering conduits running under overcrowded city streets. In some large cities, there simply is no room for additional bulky copper wires. In this case, use of smaller and lighter fiber optic cables is very effective.
5. Security: Optical fibers offers increased security against unauthorized tampering of information, since it is extremely difficult and expensive to tap optical signals.
6. Safety and electrical insulation: Optical fibers, being insulators, provide electrical isolation between source and destination. Hence, they are free from hazards due to electrical spark and are safe to use in places where it is unsafe to use electrical conductors.
7. Analog and digital signals transmission: Optical fibers enable transmission of both analog and digital signals. An analog transmission system continuously  varies light intensity, where as a digital transmission system turns light source on and off.

Optical fibers, suffer from following disadvantages:

1. Optical fibers, being fragile, cannot turn at sharp corners. They can turn at corners having radius of at least a few inches. This creates problem in physical laying of fiber optic cables.
2. Aligning and joining two fiber optic cables is not so simple and easy as for twisted copper wire pairs of coaxial cables. It requires special equipment to do so.

Advantages of optical fibers have made them a preferable data transmission medium for many applications involving telephones, televisions, and computers. Hence, they are widely used today.

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