Friday, March 28, 2008

Fiber Optics - The coming of light speed

Fiber optic cables have been around for a long time now. However, we recently have seen a big increase in sales.

Fiber cables use glass or fibers designed to carry light down the cable rather than copper used in traditional cables, that carry electrical pulses (0 1 0 1 0 0 1, binary codes sent in electrical signals). Information travels at the speed of light, literally, on fiber optic wires. Fiber optic wire is better suited for long distance data transmission because the speed is greater and the signal loss is a lot less than copper wire. Copper wire's enemy is EMI or electromagnetic interference. When you are sending light down fibers, you don't have any issues with EMI. The light is actually sent down the core or middle of the wire for optimal transmission. MMF is multi-mode fiber optics where SMF is single-mode fiber optics. You'll see multi-mode used in shorter distance fiber patch cords. Single mode is often used on longer length cables, but can be used in short lengths also.

Our fiber optic cables at Professional Cable are manufactured with Corning wire. They are known in the industry as having the best fiber optic wire. Through our experience, we've found the Corning fiber wire to be the most reliable.

Here are some facts about Corning Fiber Optic Wire:
  1. Corning invented the first low-loss optical fiber
  2. Corning invented vapor deposition process for fiber manufacturing
  3. 20 new fibers and 20+ fiber enhancements in less than 20 years
  4. More fiber deployed than any other fiber manufacturer
  5. World-class research and development for telecommunications
  6. World's first optical fiber test facility
  7. More than 125 U.S. optical fiber patents in the last 3 years
  8. ISO 9000:2000 and TL 9000 certified

These are just a few of the reason's that Professional Cable has partnered with Corning as our fiber optic wire supplier.

So why the huge increase over the past few years in fiber optic cables? Well, one reason is that copper prices keep skyrocketing. it is becoming more expensive to manufacture copper cables, while price is decreasing in manufacturing fiber optic cables because they are becoming more common. The old supply and demand of Economics 101 is taking effect here, and more and more OEM engineers and manufacturers are looking at Fiber Optics as a viable replacement for the old copper-based systems.

When fiber optic cables first started showing up in the market place, they were extremely expensive, and because they required special tools and equipment to manufacture, most cable companies were not equipped and trained to make these cables. Now as they are becoming more mainstream, and components and tools are more readily available in the marketplace, smaller custom-cable houses can do in-house production of multi-mode and single-mode fiber optic patch cords. Professional Cable has domestic manufacturing of Fiber Optic cables, and we have the ability to manufacture most variations of Fiber cables.

Until next time -

The Cable Guy

Orem, Utah

http://www.professionalcable.com/

No comments: