From the course: Understanding Copper and Fiber Optic Communication Systems
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Overview of fiber optic cable systems
From the course: Understanding Copper and Fiber Optic Communication Systems
Overview of fiber optic cable systems
- [Instructor] An alternative way of passing data and communication signals across copper-based cables is the use of fiber optic strands in fiber optic cables. Optical fibers are highly transparent strands of plastic or glass that allow light signals to be transmitted very quickly over long distances and with very low levels of lost signal strength. These light signals are converted from and to bits of data information. Fiber optic strands grouped together, can make up fiber optic cables and can carry extremely large amounts of signal, otherwise known as data, making them much more powerful and useful than copper-based conductors, especially, in the application of main trunk-type lines, also known as backbones. It's not uncommon for a complete network to utilize both fiber optic cables and copper cables in their overall makeup. Early-generation fiber optic strands in cables were made out of glass. And although, it had some flexibility, it was still very fragile and had many…
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