Fiber Optics
Fiber optic cable is being used to replace copper wire. Gigabits or billions of digital bits can be transmitted through a commercial fuber optic link. A number of other advantages of fiber optic are listed in Table I.
Table I. Advantages of Fiber Optic Cable vs. Copper Cable
Feature |
Advantage |
Speed |
High speed transmision (over 10 billion bits of data can be transmitted along an optical fiber) |
| Bandwidth | Wider bandwidths allow for larger transmission capacity |
| Resistance | Transmission is less sensitive to electromagnetic noise |
Distance |
Signals can be transmitted over greater length with less degradation of the signal |
Single Mode Fiber - Single-mode fibers are most commonly used for longer distance transmissions. The primary application for single-mode fiber is for long-distance telephone line and multichannel television broadcast systems.
Multimode Fiber - Multi-mode fibers simple refer to the multiple paths that light can be transmitted through the fiber. Multimode fiber is used for short distance transmission and are commonly used for local area networks (LAN).
Connector Components
Although there are numerous types of optical connector designs, the most common are the FC, SC and ST types of connectors. Table II shows the characteristics of types of fibers.
| Connector | Insertion Loss | Fiber Type | Application |
FC Connector |
0.50-1.00 dB | Single mode, mutimode | Telecom (widely used) |
SC Connector  |
0.20-0.45 dB | Single mode, mutimode | Datacom, Telecom (growing in popularity) |
ST Connector  |
0.40-0.50 dB | Single mode, mutimode | Datacom (most common), Telecom |