How fibre Optic cable Broadband works?
Fibre Optics has created an impact in the growth of broadband technology and has brought tremendous changes in the way we communicate. It is divided in to two main categories such as fibre to the Cabinet (FTTC) and fibre to the home or fibre to the premises. fibre optic broadband is also called by other terms such as ‘next-generation broadband’ and ‘super-fast broadband’. A brief description about fibre optic broadband, its working principle and other related matters are discussed below.
How does fibre optic broadband work?
Thin, long fibre optic strands are arranged in bundles and are called as fibre optic cables. These are made up of strands of glass that are thinner than human hair. They are designed to carry digital information over long distances. Apart from optical cables that are made up of glass material, there are other types of fibres as well that are made up of plastic. Three main parts in a fibre optic wire are core, cladding and buffer coating.
Source: http://encyclopedia2.thefreedictionary.com/
Core is the centre part of the wire through which the light travels. Cladding acts as a reflector to reflect back the light in to the core. And, the third part called the buffer coating is a plastic coating that protects the cable from dust, moisture and damage. Thousands of fibre optic strands are bundled together to form a fibre optic cable and is again covered with a jacket.
The two different types of optical fibres are single mode fibres and multi mode fibres. Single mode fibres contain small cores and can easily transmit infrared laser light. Multi mode fibres are designed to have larger cores and are built to transmit infrared light.
Working principle of fibre optics
When light passes through the core, it travels straight unless it comes across any bends. Under such circumstances, a reflecting body such as a mirror is placed at the bends to reflect back the light and take it further along the path. This principle is applied by mirror lining the sides of the fibre optic cables so that the light reflects within the cable itself. The process by which the light travels along the cable by reflecting all the way is called as total internal reflection. The reflected light does not lose its intensity and hence it is capable of travelling longer distances. The capacity of the light that is transmitted depends on the wavelength and the extent of the purity of the glass.
But how does the message get transmitted to the other end? The answer is here…..Four components such as transmitter, optical fibre, optical regenerator and optical receiver are used to communicate information from end to end. A transmitter directs to turn the light on and off and also has a lens to focus the light in to the fibre. Optical regenerators are used to strengthen weak signals especially when they travel long distances. Hence, one or two optical regenerators are usually fixed in long cable lines in order to amplify weak signals. A special coating called as doping that comes in an optical regenerator pumps out the laser when the weak signal comes in contact with the doped portion. Thus the doped molecules are energised by the laser and convert themselves into laser and travel with the same characteristics as the weak light signal. The optical receiver on the receiving end decodes the signal and passes it to the device connected. The light is detected with a photodiode or photocell.
Benefits of fibre to the Home Broadband connection
FTTH or fibre to the home broadband connection is laid between the exchange and the cabinet and from the cabinet to the user’s premises. This way the user can enjoy browsing with the same speed that arrives from the broadband exchange. There are quite a lot of advantages and few of them are discussed below.
- As fibre optic cable lines are completely from the exchange to consumer’s home, there is no copper line at all.
- The downstream line speed of FTTH is up to 40Mbps, but the actual download speed is about 39Mbps. Upload speeds ranges between 2Mbps and 10Mbps. However, the speed depends on the distance between the cabinet and the premises.
- fibre optic cables have more capacity and also connection speeds compared to the coaxial cables, DSL or twisted pair conductors.
- Studies confirm that a pair of copper conductor is capable of carrying about 6 phone calls, while a pair of fibre optic cable can carry 2.5 million calls at the same time.
- FTTH connections are capable of fulfilling the demands of the consumers easily.
- Cost incurred to lay fibre optic cables with FTTH technology is comparatively less.
- FTTH is capable of handling 30-gigabyte per second needs and we can soon expect 3D holographic high definition games and also television programmes to be available everywhere.
- Further developments in the field of fibre optic broadband can be expected in the years to come and this will result in the advancement of other related technologies as well.
Benefits of fibre to the Business Broadband connection
Fibre to the business broadband connection is in fact yet another mile stone in the telecommunication industry. This type of connection is designed especially for business concerns which require fast and reliable connectivity. fibre to the business broadband connection gives the same speed as that of the ordinary type of broadband connection, except that the speed offered is consistent even at peak times. This particular feature is useful for business concerns as nothing can be compromised for the sake of business. Few advantages of fibre to the Business Broadband connection are discussed below.
- Few business broadband packages offer free email addresses apart from dedicated website domains.
- You might also get advanced mail delivery system which will restrict the number of spam received and also controls both incoming and outgoing emails.
- Business packages offered by Plusnet come with a feature wherein the user is allowed to ditch his fax machine so that he can get all his fax messages directly to his inbox.
- Business broadband package offered by Eclipse provides the user with 250MB of web space.
- You might also get static IP addresses that can be used to send and receive email messages by the use of a FTP server. It does not use dynamic IP addresses that consume time every time it is refreshed.
- Business broadband packages are better than domestic ones because business broadband users have more preference than others.
- Contention ratio or number of people sharing the line at the same time will determine the exact speed of the broadband. Residential broadband packages come with contention ratio of 50:1. And some of the business broadband packages come with contention ratios of 20:1 and 1:1, which are comparatively faster.
- Users with business broadband get customer support faster than the others.
- Although business broadband packages come with fair usage policy, broadband providers understand that businesses need higher allowances than the regular ones and hence do not usually bother to question business concerns when they download heavily.
- Upload and download speeds are faster with business broadband package.
- Almost all business broadband packages come with free anti-virus software to protect the systems from harmful online viruses.
With a static IP, a computer can own a permanent IP address and this is useful for anybody running his own business or website from home. Also, static IP addresses are useful for professionals and heavy users. Some of the packages provided by broadband providers come with features such as wireless router, fast internet connection, short term contract, unlimited download limit, short term contract and a static IP address.
Static IP address allows you to connect to your PC no matter where you are. One can create his own mail address instead of yahoo or Hotmail accounts using a separate mail server. FTP site can be set up in order to upload and share files with others. Computers with static address can be identified easily and can also be accessed from remote easily.
It can thus be concluded that fibre optic broadband technology is an ultra super fast broadband connection that can be enjoyed only with the application of fibre optic cable lines. After all, every one needs speed that can meet the quality!
