A fibre optic is a long, thin fibre made of quartz glass. With fibre optic technology, transmission rates of up to 1 Gbit/s can be achieved, which is considerably higher than with conventional broadband technologies such as DSL.
Fibre optics transmit information via light waves. The data is not transmitted using electricity, as is the case with copper cables, but as an optical signal. The light pulses are sent via fibre optic cables. Fibre optic cables are cables consisting of optical fibres, some of which are assembled with connectors, which transmit light waves. The light is guided in fibres made of plastic (polymer optical fibre = POF): the fibre optics. Normally, a fibre optic cable contains several optical fibres.
The fibre optic cable is made up of three components. At the very centre is the inner core, which transmits the data as optical light signals. A sheath is wrapped around it to prevent the light from escaping. The outer layer is formed by a plastic sheath that protects the sensitive fibre optic cable.
Thanks to its numerous advantages, fibre optics is currently the leading solution to meet the increasing demand for bandwidth.
The biggest advantage being the data transmission speed and stability that fibre optics technology enables. This is because, unlike copper lines, fibre optics are not subject to bandwidth restrictions. Transmission using light waves means that consistently high data transmission rates can be guaranteed over long distances. Data transmission is therefore both reliable and high-speed.
In addition, fibre optic cables are extremely powerful and enable fast downloads and uploads of large amounts of data. This ensures consistently high quality for streaming, video games and other activities that require a high internet bandwidth. Thanks to their high load capacity, all these activities can also be carried out simultaneously or distributed across many devices without any problems.
In our blog posts Fibre optics simply explained and Advantages of fibre optics you can find out more about fibre optics and its advantages, especially in comparison to DSL.
A distinction must be made between 2 types of fibre optic cable: Singlemode fibres and multimode fibres.
Single-mode fibres have a smaller diameter, which means that only one (single) wavelength of light can propagate. As only one type of light is transmitted, this type of fibre is less susceptible to interference and is recommended for long distances. The core of multimode fibres is thicker, which means that many different wavelengths and therefore also types of light can be transmitted simultaneously. This enables higher bandwidths, but limits the range.
We have already reported in detail on the various fibre optic connections in other Knowhows:
