What is optical fiber?

What is optical fiber?

Optical fiber refers to the environment and technology related to the transmission of information as light pulses along a glass or plastic fiber or transparent fiber. Optical fiber is used for long-distance and high-performance data networks.

Optical fiber is also usually used in telecommunication systems such as Internet, intranet and telephone. For example, companies such as Irancell Telecom, the first partner of Irancell, use optical fiber in their services (data transmission between masts and switching centers) and provide gigabyte internet speed to users.

For this reason, fiber optic cables are used because they have more advantages than copper cables. Such as higher bandwidth and higher transmission speed and longer distance.

An optical fiber cable can contain a different number of these glass fibers. From a few to several hundreds, they are called blinds and each string or blind transmits light pulses separately. Around the core of the glass is another layer of glass called the cladding. A layer known as a buffer tube protects the coating, and a gel layer acts as the final protective layer of the separate filament to prevent corrosion.

How fiber optic works

How does fiber optic cable work?

Fiber optics transmit data in the form of light particles—or photons—that pulse through the fiber optic cable.

The glass fiber core and coating each have a different refractive index that bends the incoming light at a certain angle.

When optical signals are sent through fiber optic cables.

They are reflected from the core and cladding in a series of zigzag bounces and stick to a process called total internal reflection.

Light signals do not travel at the speed of light due to denser layers of glass, instead they travel about 30% slower than the speed of light. To renew or amplify the signal along the path, fiber optic transmission sometimes requires repeaters at long distances to reproduce the optical signal by converting the optical signal to an electrical signal, processing that electrical signal, and retransmitting the optical signal.

Fiber optic cables are moving towards supporting signals up to 200 Gbps. Typically, the higher the bandwidth of a fiber optic cable, the more expensive it becomes.

Types of optical fiber

Multimode fiber and single mode fiber are the two main types of fiber optic cables. Single-mode fiber is used for long distances due to the smaller diameter of the glass fiber core, which reduces the possibility of attenuation – a decrease in signal strength. The smaller aperture confines the light into a beam that provides a more direct path and allows the signal to travel a greater distance. The light source used for single mode fiber is typically a laser.

Multimode fiber is used for shorter distances because the larger core opening causes the optical signals to rotate and reflect more along the path.

The larger diameter allows multiple light pulses to be sent through the cable at the same time, resulting in more information being transmitted.

This also means that there is a greater chance of signal loss, degradation or interference.

While copper wire was the traditional telecommunications, networking and cable option for years, fiber optics has become a common choice. Most telecommunication company long-distance lines are now made of fiber optic cables. Because of its higher bandwidth and higher speed, optical fiber carries more information than ordinary copper wire. Since glass does not conduct electricity, optical fiber is not subject to electromagnetic interference and signal loss is minimized.

Eriont is a manufacturer of various optical fiber data transmission equipment such as optical fiber media converter, SDH, PDH, cwdm, DWDM, transmission of telephone lines on optical fiber.

Is fiber optic dangerous?

Since the transmission of information and the working method of optical fiber is based on light and laser, and the laser is transmitted in a completely isolated chamber, it has no electromagnetic or side effects. One of the main advantages of optical fiber is the absence of interference from other factors or interference from other external factors.

How many core optical fibers are there?

Optical fibers are made from one to 144 cores based on their application, and single core models are mostly used in ftth communications and high cores are usually used in inter-city or inter-country routes, such as Iran fiber to UAE or Turkey.

How to convert fiber optic line to copper?

In order to convert optical fiber to copper, optical fiber converters (media converters) are used, which provide conversion capability by receiving optical pulses into electricity.

How does optical fiber work? How is optical fiber made?

An optical fiber transmits data in the form of light particles – or photons – that pulse through a fiber optic cable.

Fiber optic price

Optical fiber cables have different prices based on the usage environment, the number of strands – single mode and multimode.