Optical Fiber Essay

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A single discovery can change the world that had been proved in history many times. Communication plays an important role in human beings life. Optical fiber has modernized the way the world communicates. Optical fiber is a combination of light and glass, build in a strand of glass thinner than human hair. This astonishing medium allows us to broadcast data, voice and video at the speed of light. Researchers who were working for American Glass maker Corning Incorporated invented the first low - loss optical fiber with crucial attenuation limit of 20 db/km for use in telecommunications network. Signal loss of 17 decibels of light per kilometer of fiber was demonstrated. After 40 years of continuing products and process innovation have helped Corning to achieve signal loss of 0.17 db/km. This resulted in more advanced and faster telecommunications network to connect cities and continents. [A] In today’s world optical fiber is a vital technology for fast, consistent delivery of services. Electronics device such as smart phones, GPS, HD TV and many other can connect us directly and continuously to communication networks without any problem.

FIBER OPTIC AHEAD OF COPPER
Fiber optic technology utilizes pulses of light to carry information along the incredibly thin strands of glass. Fiber optic has greater bandwidth as it can transfer huge amount of data at time compare to copper. For an instance, a LAN network using traditional copper cables can carry 3000 telephone calls at a time, while if we use fiber optics it can carry over 31000 calls. Copper cables convey electrical currents, while fiber optics transmit pulses of light produced by a LED or laser along optical fibers. Information is encoded by perceiving changes in energy in bo...

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...um bandwidth of 600 MHz over 100m while Graded Index cable can offer us 1000 Mhz over 100m.

Different countries have different internet speed.
Internet access improves each year in U. S. but still it has ranked 11th (according to Forbes.com) among other fast internet access countries. This is evaluated by taking into account factors such as upload and downloads speed and the number of homes with Internet. So what makes U. S. slower than other 10 countries? There are few obstacles, but major problem is smaller scale adaptation of fiber technology. It is extremely difficult to change to fiber. For ISPs investment in fiber optics is not a major concern but in order to adopt fiber they have to update their equipment as well. Updating equipments such as the processing units, router to direct signal to their destination and many other devices would cost a fortune.

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