Fiber Optic Cable

ADVANTAGES

SPEED: Fiber optic networks operate at high speeds - up into the gigabits


BANDWIDTH: large carrying capacity


DISTANCE: Signals can be transmitted further without needing to be "refreshed" or strengthened.


RESISTANCE: Greater resistance to electromagnetic noise such as radios, motors or other nearby cables.




Three types of fiber optic cable commonly used:


single mode,


multimode and


plastic optical fiber (POF).



Fiber Optic Cable: The transport fibres of glass or plastic that are enclosed by material of a lower index of refraction and that transmit light throughout their length by internal reflections. These fibres are bundled into cables and are capable of transmitting very large amounts of digital information (data) in both directions with very little loss in signal quality. From Glossary of Distance Education and Internet Terminology.


Iis a network cable that contains strands of glass fibers inside an insulated casing. These cables are designed for long distance and very high bandwidth (gigabit speed) network communications.
Fiber optic cables carry communication signals using pulses of light. While expensive, these cables are increasingly being used instead of traditional copper cables, because fiber offers more capacity and is less susceptible to electrical interference. So-called Fiber to the Home (FTTH) installations are becoming more common as a way to bring ultra high speed Internet service (100 Mbps and higher) to residences.


Single Mode fiber optic cables are designed for the transmission of a single ray or mode of light as a carrier, and are used primarily for long-distance signal transmission.
SINGLEMODE fiber cable only has one mode of propagation, a single wavelength of light in one fiber core. As a result there is no interference or overlap between different wavelengths of light over long distances. Please Call or request a Quote for any of the following:
SC to SC Fiber Cables
ST to ST Fiber Cables
SC to ST Fiber Cables
LC Fiber SINGLEMODE Patch Cables, LC Connectors
LC to SC Fiber Optic Cable
LC to ST Fiber Optic Cable
LC to LC Fiber Optic Cable
LC to FC Fiber Optic Cable

Single-mode fiber - is a type of fiber optic cable through which only one light signal can travel at a time.
Because single-mode fiber is more resistant to attenuation than multi-mode fiber, it can be used in significantly longer cable runs.
The core of a single-mode fiber is normally 9 microns wide. A micron is one millionth of a meter.
Single-mode fiber can support Gigabit Ethernet over distances as long as 10 kilomters.
The opposite of single-mode fiber is multi-mode fiber.

Multimode fiber optic cable - and components are less expensive and easier to work with than their singlemode counterparts. This is due largely to the fact that the multimode fiber core is larger, and alignment tolerances are much less critical than they are for singlemode fiber. Like singlemode, multimode fiber provides high bandwidth at high speeds, but transmission is limited to shorter distances than singlemode. (In longer cable runs, the multiple paths of light in a multimode fiber tend to create signal distortion).Standard multimode cable is made of glass fibers, usually 50-to-100 micron in diameter (most common is 62.5). Multimode cable is also available as low-cost Plastic Optical Fiber (POF), which offers performance similar to glass cable for very short runs.