BandwidthBar

Fiber is a word that many people may have heard with regard to telecommunications, broadband and bandwidth. Fiber is the upgrade to the traditional copper wires that have been the backbone of the world’s telecommunications networks for decades. Even though fibre optics has been around since the middle 20th century it has only recently been put to its maximum use. But what is about fiber that makes it the cable of choice over copper?

 

When people talk about fiber cables they are referring to fiber optic cables. Fiber cables transmit data with light instead of electrical currents. A transmitter ‘translates’ electrical data into beams of light that are then sent along the fiber cable. A receiver then ‘translates’ the beams of light back into electrical data to be processed. Fiber cables are much better for all kinds of communications including normal telephone lines and broadband connections.

 

One of the biggest advantages of fiber cables over copper is the fact that it suffers from almost no data loss and can run for much longer distances without losing data or requiring repeaters or amplifiers. Since fiber cables use light to transmit data and not electrical signals it is also effectively immune to electromagnetic interference such as power lines and railroad tracks.

 

Fiber also offers much greater bandwidth than copper. Per channel, the light signals used in a fiber cable can be modulated to function at rates as high as 111 gigabits per second. In practice it is limited to 10 or 40 Gb/s, however. This is because each fibre is capable of carrying many independent channels that use a different wavelength of light unlike copper that is limited to the single electrical wavelength. This characteristic makes it ideal for broadband solutions and situations where a lot of data has to be communicated effectively.

 

So why have fiber cables not replaced all the copper cables for the purposes of communication and broadband connections? The first limiter is price. Fiber costs substantially more than copper per metre or kilometre. Even though prices have come down considerably in recent years, copper wires still remain ‘good enough’ for most situations in South Africa. Additionally, the task of replacing the thousands of kilometres of copper wire infrastructure in place under cities and across the country will be no small task – let alone a cheap one.

 

The other factor is practicality. While fiber optic cables are much better for communications and especially broadband connections thanks to its high bandwidth for most day-to-day activities fiber still seems a bit like overkill to many people. An SME that simply needs access to its online banking, email and its website has no reason to have superfast, high bandwidth cables at its disposal.

 

Times are changing though. Fiber cables have already replaced many of the copper cable infrastructures in developed countries and developing countries are also slowly switching over. Fiber is faster, more efficient and more trustworthy. Copper wires have done an admirable job of helping people communicate for the last century but its time for fiber to take over.

 

 

 

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