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Fiber Optics
Advantages over copper connections
- Extremely wide system bandwith : With LEDs (5 ns response time) the bandwith is limited to about 100 MHz but with a laser light source data rates of 10 Gbps are possible on a single-mode fiber. By multiplexing, one can reach hundreds of Gbps.
- Immune to electrostatic interference : External electrical noise does not affect the data transmission in fiber optics. However, other metallic points (connections, components, etc.) may be affected.
- No crosstalk : Contrary to copper cable, light in fiber optics do not interfere from one fiber to another even if they are very close to each other.
- Low signal attenuation : Typical attenuation is about 0.03 dB per 100 feet.
- Cost competitive : With massive deployment costs are dropping.
- No electricity involved
- No corrosion
- Harder to intercept/tap
Requires efficient optical connectors due to excessive loss that can occur at connection points.