Benefits and Disadvantages of Using Fiber Optics for Communication

There are a variety of benefits and disadvantages to using fiber optics for communication. The primary benefit of fiber optics is its bandwidth capacity. Optical signals have a much greater capacity for information than electrical signals. Scocco (2006) notes that the most advanced copper cables can only carry 1 GB/second. Optical fibers can theoretically carry 350 TB/second (350,000 GB/second). Even though this is a theoretical number, currently telecom carriers are already packing more than 1 TB/second, with a single optical fiber. Currently, using DSL technology, the twisted copper pair is use today can only transmit approximately 50 MB/second. In addition, signal reliability is significantly greater with fiber optics. Lastly, the size and weight of fiber optics is a fraction of that of coaxial cables. Yet, despite these benefits, there are disadvantages to fiber optical cables for communication as well.

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