A Look at Fibre Optic Broadband

Modern technology has rained down a vast array of devices to become part and parcel of our lives, at work, at home, and just about everywhere else too.

Copper wires laid down to carry voice conversations have been laden with usage as time online has multiplied many, many times.

Web-connected laptops, tablets, smart-phones, smart tv’s online games consoles, tweets, likes, streaming films and working in the cloud, all add up to a large slice of bandwidth. It has to be transmitted somehow, and that is where optic fibre has become part of everyone’s everyday life.

The copper cables that carried our information for so long have been rather left in the dark ages as information is now carried by light.

Fibre optics are strands of high quality glass spun into a long cylindrical shape the width of a human hair or even thinner.

These single strands are clad in a mirrored coating which keeps the light inside the fibre optic as it travels along it.

The clad is coated in a thermoplastic coating and then a plastic jacket to keep it secure. These fibres can be bundled together to form a cable anything up to 200 strands in content. These cables can carry millions of pieces of information at the same time.

The information to be sent is translated from analogue into pulses of light and travel very fast, in fact, approaching light speed. The pulses reflect internally along the glass core bouncing along like bobsleigh running downhill.

When they arrive at the other end they are translated back into a physically recognised format.

Fibre optic cables are now the primary channel for carrying information over long distances, primarily because they can carry greater bandwidth, carrying far more data than copper cables of the same diameter.

There is no cross-interference in optic fibre cabling which allows them to transmit information more reliably and with better signal quality. It is simpler and therefore cheaper, to maintain.

One of the greatest recognisable benefits is the download and upload speeds compared with copper cabling, in some cases it can be more than ten times the speed.

Fibre networks have enabled global networking of systems for business, cloud storage, cloud networking and secure globalised information sharing without delays.

Large IBM Server Hosting & Maintenance providers such as BlueChip have capitalised on the speed of this technology providing real time remote systems monitoring and management giving peace of mind and security to customers worldwide.

The phenomenal speeds of fibre optic cabling are restricted in most domestic situations by the fact that while the information can cross a continent at approaching light speed, it arrives at a junction box near your house to be transferred onto the copper cabling that runs to your home.

This adds time, and is something of a lottery of efficiency across the country. While often cost prohibitive for domestic applications, large corporations are comfortable to invest in fibre networking to give their systems the best possible performance.