The Advantages of Fiber Optic Transmission

Fiber optic transmission is widely used for data transmission and is increasingly being used in place of metal wires because of its efficiency and high transmission capacity. The article mainly discusses the advantages of fiber optic transmission.

The global fiber optics market size is expected to reach USD 9.1 billion by 2025, according to a new report by Grand View Research, Inc.. The statistic shows fiber optic transmission is experiencing its prime time and will change telecommunications greatly.

Driven by the rising demand for higher bandwidth and faster speed connections for a variety of industrial and residential purposes, fiber optic transmission is becoming more and more common in modern society. In this tutorial, the advantages and disadvantages of fiber optic transmission will be explored in detail.

What is Fiber Optic Transmission

A fiber optic communication system consists of three main components: optical transmitter, fiber optic cable and an optical receiver. The entire optical fiber transmission process mainly includes three steps. Firstly, the optical transmitter converts the electrical signal to the optical signal; secondly, the fiber optic cable carries the optical signal from the optical transmitter to the optical receiver. Lastly, the optical receiver reconverts the optical signal to electrical signal. 

The most commonly used light emitters are semiconductor devices, such as LEDs (light emitting diodes) and laser diodes. The photodetector is the key part of the optical receiver which uses the photodetector effect to convert light into electrical energy. The most inconspicuous but the most important optical cable connects the entire system.  As the use and demand for speed and bandwidth, the development of optical cables is amazing. But why the optical canbles is so important? What’s the advantages of fiber optic transmission? Let’s begin to discuss!

Advantages of Fiber Optic Transmission

Because of its advantages over electrical transmission, optical fibers have largely replaced copper wire communications in core networks in the developed world. Here are the main advantages of fiber optic transmission.

Extremely High Bandwidth: No other cable-based data transmission medium offers the bandwidth that fiber does. The volume of data that fiber optic cables transmit per unit time is far greater than copper cables.

Longer Distance: in fiber optic transmission, optical cables are capable of providing low power loss, which enables signals can be transmitted to a longer distance than copper cables. And through the fiber optic adapter, different fiber optic connectors can be connected to realize the conversion between different interfaces and realize long-distance transmission.

Resistance to Electromagnetic Interference: in practical cable deployment, it’s inevitable to meet environments like power substations, heating, ventilating and other industrial sources of interference. However, fiber has a very low rate of bit error (10 EXP-13), as a result of fiber being so resistant to electromagnetic interference. Fiber optic transmission is virtually noise free.

Low Security Risk: the growth of the fiber optic communication market is mainly driven by increasing awareness about data security concerns and use of the alternative raw material. Data or signals are transmitted via light in fiber optic transmission. Therefore there is no way to detect the data being transmitted by "listening in" to the electromagnetic energy "leaking" through the cable, which ensures the absolute security of information.

Small Size: fiber optic cable has a very small diameter. For example, the cable diameter of a single OM3 multimode fiber is about 2mm, which is smaller than that of coaxial copper cable. Small size saves more space in fiber optic transmission.

Light Weight: fiber optic cables are made of glass or plastic, and they are thinner than copper cables. These make them lighter and easy to install. Easy to Accommodate Increasing Bandwidth: with the use of fiber optic cable, new equipment can be added to existing cable infrastructure. Because optical cable can provide vastly expanded capacity over the originally laid cable. And WDM (wavelength division multiplexing) technology, including CWDM and DWDM, enables fiber cables the ability to accommodate more bandwidth.