Fiber Optic Wiki

Copper, Fiber or Wireless?

December 24, 2011

While discussions of which is better – copper, fiber or wireless – has enlivened cabling discussions for decades, it’s becoming moot. Communications technology and the end user market, it seems, have already made decisions that generally dictate the media and many networks combine all three.

Long Distance and Outside Plant Cabling

December 24, 2011

Other than telco systems that still use copper for the final connection to the home, practically every cable in the telephone system is fiber optic. CATV companies use a high performance coax into the home, but it connects to a fiber optic backbone. The Internet backbone is all fiber. Most commercial buildings in populous areas have direct fiber connections from communications suppliers. Cities use SM fiber to connect municipal buildings, surveillance cameras, traffic signals and sometimes offer commercial and residential connections, all over singlemode fiber. Even cellular antenna towers along highways and on tall buildings usually have fiber connections. Remote areas such as central Africa depend on satellite communications since cables are too expensive to run long distances for the small amounts of traffic involved.

The desire for mobility, along with the expansion of connected services,

December 24, 2011

The desire for mobility, along with the expansion of connected services, appears to lead to a new type of corporate network. Fiber optic backbone with copper to the desktop where people want direct connections and multiple wireless access points, more than is common in the past, for full coverage and maintaining a reasonable number of users per access point is the new norm for corporate networks.

Use of Cabling Standards

December 24, 2011

Many documents relating to cable plant design focus on industry standards for both communications systems and cable plants. US standards come from the TIA or Telcordia while worldwide standards may come from ISO/IEC or ITU.

Choosing Transmission Equipment

December 24, 2011

Choosing transmission equipment is the next step in designing a fiber optic network. This step will usually be a cooperative venture involving the customer, who knows what kinds of data they need to communicate, the designer and installer, and the manufacturers of transmission equipment. Transmission equipment and the cable plant are tightly interrelated. The distance and bandwidth will help determine the fiber type necessary and that will dictate the optical interfaces on the cable plant. The ease of choosing equipment may depend on the type of communications equipment needed.

How OTDRs Work

December 22, 2011

Unlike sources and power meters which measure the loss of the fiber optic cable plant directly, the OTDR works indirectly. The source and meter duplicate the transmitter and receiver of the fiber optic transmission link, so the measurement correlates well with actual system loss.

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