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• Article Continues: Fiber Optics User Guide
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Fiber Optics may appear to be a recent technology, but their presence has been around a great deal longer than one might expect. The father of telecommunications, Alexander Graham Bell, developed a simple method of modulating light for his “Photo-Phone” contraption in the late 1800’s. The first attempts at developing fiber optic cabling occurred in the 1930s, but it would take several more decades for the technology to become practical. Initial attempts at producing fiber optic cabling were a tumultuous affair due to the negative effects of Attenuation. Attenuation is the property of signal loss within a cable assembly. The glass used in fiber optic cables at the time was not of great enough purity to maintain signal integrity at great distances. Essentially, the light pulses would degrade by an appalling 1000 dB/km (over 300X in one kilometer) by the time they reached the other end of the cable. |
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Alexander Graham Bell
Father of Telecommunications |
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Single Mode Cable: Breakaway View |
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Glass Fiber Optic Strands |
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In the late 1960’s, Corning patented and refined the process of making the fiber optic cores out of glass, thereby bringing the attenuation rate down to 20 dB/km or less. This is one of many features that make fiber optics so attractive. Unlike Copper twisted pair cabling like Cat5e or Cat6, which is limited to 100m lengths, fiber runs often exceed 50 miles in length!
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Block Diagram: Electro-Optical Conversion |
Nearly every electronic gadget today operates in the “Digital Domain”. The Digital Domain is a term describing the use of digital signals in the circuitry of a particular device or its corresponding infrastructure. Digital signals can be supported throughout multiple mediums. The only pre-requisite being digital communication must be achieved in a binary fashion of some type (1’s and 0’s). In the case of a digital signal operating over a fiber optic link, a light source pulsing on would represent a value of 1 and a light source pulsing off would represent a value of 0. In the case of a digital signal operating over a Copper link, an electrical pulse would be used instead of light. Devices such as Fiber Optic Media Converters allow data to be exchanged between Copper-based and optical-based systems. The ability to easily convert between a Copper based network and a Fiber based network is critical because each technology has its own inherent advantages and disadvantages.
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| Image of a Fiber Optic Media Converter |
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