Fibre optics has been one of the fastest growing trends in the technology world for the past decade. They are now used in a wide range of industries such as medicine and communication. While it was extremely expensive to install just a few years ago, fibre optic cables have become a lot more affordable in recent years. The fibre optic cable is now one of the more popular materials used when installing upgrades and new cabling. It is widely known to be superior to the previously popular copper cables for a number of reasons.

Distance and speed

The signals that fibre optics cables send are made of light. This means that there is extremely little signal loss during the transmission. Therefore, the contained data can travel longer distances at greater speeds. Copper cabling has a 100 metre distance limit, something which fibre optics does not have. This means that the unshielded twisted pair copper will leak signal loss. While the fibre optic distances depend on variables such as wavelength, cable style and the network, distances can start from 550 metres right up to 40 kilometres for a single cable.

Better bandwidth

Fibre optic cables provide much greater levels of bandwidth than copper cabling. This greater level of bandwidth enables the fibre optic cables to carry larger amounts of information with greater precision than the copper cables. Fibres that are single mode provide the highest bandwidth with no limitations.

Security

Fibre optic cabling keeps your data safe. No signals are radiated and it is very hard to tap. Copper cabling can be easily tapped which makes it very easy to monitor your data due to the light that the cable is leaking, resulting in system failure. If somebody tries to break past the security of your fibre optics system, you will know. Fibre networks let you have all of your hardware and electronics in the same room, instead of having copper wiring closets located throughout the building.

Reliability and durability

Fibre optics cables are very reliable when transferring data across the network. Copper cabling can be affected by certain environmental factors such as temperature changes and water submersion unlike fibre optics. No electrical current can flow through the fibre optics cabling as the centre of it is made of glass, which acts as an insulator. It is also immune to other types of signal interference such as radio-frequencies and electrometric. Fibre optics cabling is thin, lightweight and a lot more durable than copper cabling. When you want to have increased speeds with copper, you need to have thicker and heavier cables that will take up a lot more space.

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