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• BANDWIDTH: large carrying capacity

• SPEED: Fiber optic networks operate at high speeds - up into the gigabits            

• DISTANCE: Signals can be transmitted further without needing to be "refreshed" or strengthened.
• RESISTANCE: Greater resistance to electromagnetic noise such as radios, motors or other nearby cables.
• MAINTENANCE: Fiber optic cables costs much less to maintain.

Two of the types of fiber optic cables are: multimode & single mode.

Multimode cable is made of multiple strands of glass fibers, with a combined diameter in the 50-to-100 micron range. Each fiber in a multimode cable is capable of carrying a different signal independent from those on the other fibers in the cable bundle. POF is a newer plastic-based cable which promises performance similar to single mode cable, but at a lower cost.

Single Mode cable is a single strand of glass fiber with a diameter of 8.3 to 10 microns. (One micron is 1/250th the width of a human hair.)

While fiber optic cable itself is cheaper than an equivalent length of copper cable, fiber optic cable connectors and the equipment needed to install them are more expensive than their copper counterparts.

Fiber optic cable functions as a "light guide," guiding the light introduced at one end of the cable through to the other end. The light source can either be a light-emitting diode (LED)) or a laser.

The light source is pulsed on and off, and a light-sensitive receiver on the other end of the cable converts the pulses back into the digital ones and zeros of the original signal.

Even laser light shining through a fiber optic cable is subject to loss of strength, primarily through dispersion and scattering of the light, within the cable itself. The faster the laser fluctuates, the greater the risk of dispersion. Light strengtheners, called repeaters, may be necessary to refresh the signal in certain applications.