Fiber-optic communication is a method of transmitting information from one place to another by sending pulses of light through an optical fiber. The light forms an electromagnetic carrier wave that is modulated to carry information. First developed in the 1970s, fiber-optic communication systems have revolutionized the telecommunications industry and have played a major role in the advent of the Information Age. Because of its advantages over electrical transmission, optical fibers have largely replaced copper wire communications in core networks in the developed world.
The process of communicating using fiber-optics involves the
following basic steps: Creating the optical signal involving the use of a
transmitter, relaying the signal along the fiber, ensuring that the
signal does not become too distorted or weak, receiving the optical
signal, and converting it into an electrical signal.
Applications
Optical fiber
is used by many telecommunications companies to transmit telephone
signals, Internet communication, and cable television signals. Due to
much lower attenuation and interference,
optical fiber has large advantages over existing copper wire in
long-distance and high-demand applications. However, infrastructure
development within cities was relatively difficult and time-consuming,
and fiber-optic systems were complex and expensive to install and
operate. Due to these difficulties, fiber-optic communication systems
have primarily been installed in long-distance applications, where they
can be used to their full transmission capacity, offsetting the
increased cost. Since 2000, the prices for fiber-optic communications
have dropped considerably. The price for rolling out fiber to the home
has currently become more cost-effective than that of rolling out a
copper based network. Prices have dropped to $850 per subscriber[citation needed] in the US and lower in countries like The Netherlands, where digging costs are low.
Since 1990, when optical-amplification
systems became commercially available, the telecommunications industry
has laid a vast network of intercity and transoceanic fiber
communication lines. By 2002, an intercontinental network of 250,000 km
of submarine communications cable with a capacity of 2.56 Tb/s
was completed, and although specific network capacities are privileged
information, telecommunications investment reports indicate that network
capacity has increased dramatically since 2004.