A fiber optic cable is a network cable that contains strands of glass fibers inside an insulated casing. They're designed for long-distance, high-performance data networking, and telecommunications. Compared to wired cables, fiber optic cables provide higher bandwidth and transmit data over longer distances. Fiber optic cables support much of the world's internet, cable television, and telephone systems.
In Shot, Fiber optic cables carry communication signals using pulses of light generated by small lasers or light-emitting diodes.
Fiber cables offer several advantages over long-distance copper cabling.
Fiber optics support a higher capacity the amount of network bandwidth a fiber cable can carry easily
exceeds that of a copper cable with similar thickness. Fiber cables rated at 10 Gbps, 40 Gbps, and 100 Gbps are standard.
Because light can travel for much longer distances over a fiber cable without losing its strength, the need for signal boosters is lessened.
A fiber optic cable is less susceptible to interference. A copper network cable requires shielding to protect it from electromagnetic interference. While this shielding helps, it is not sufficient to prevent interference when many cables are strung together in proximity to one another. The physical properties of fiber optic cables avoid most of these problems.
Regardless of the structure of the optical cable, it is basically composed of three parts: the cable core, the reinforcing element and the sheath.
Types of Fibre
There are two primary types of fibre – multimode and singlemode.
Multimode fibre can carry multiple light rays (modes) at the same time by having varying optical properties at the core; essentially light travelling the shortest path (down the middle) travels the slowest.The larger core simplifies connections and takes advantage of the lower cost LED & VCSEL technologies which operate in the 850nm window. Due to dispersion the range is limited so it tends to be used as premises cabling when less than a kilometre. It comes in two core sizes, 62.5 and 50 microns.
Singlemode fibre has a much smaller core size of 9 microns and has a single light path and can travel much longer distances of up to 100km. These require more expensive electronics which operate in the 1310 and 1550nm windows and are typically used in longer distance LAN’s, Cable TV and telephony applications.
Classification and structure of optical cable: Classified by application scenario: Optical cable can be divided into Indoor plenum; Indoor Cables; Outdoor cables; Interlocking armored cable; Outdoor Aerial cable with messenger.
The world standards organization ITU-T also proposed unified naming recommendations for types of optical cables:
GY: Communication indoor (field) outdoor optical cable
GM: Communication Mobile Fiber Optic Cable
GJ: Optical cable in communication indoor (office)
GS: Optical cable in communication equipment
GH: Submarine optical cable for communication
GT: Special optical cable for communication
F: Non-metallic reinforcement
D: Fiber optic tape structure
J: Fiber Optic Jacketed Structure
G: Skeleton channel structure
X: Central beam tube structure
T: Grease filled construction
Z: Self-supporting structure
B: Flat shape
Z: Flame retardant
Y: Polyethylene sheath
V: PVC sheath
U: Polyurethane sheath
A: Aluminum-polyethylene bonded sheath (A sheath)
S: Steel-polyethylene bonded sheath (S sheath)
W: Steel-polyethylene bonded jacket (W jacket) with parallel steel wires
L: Aluminum sheath
G: Steel sheath
Q: Lead sheath