The world of telecommunications is rapidly moving from copper wire networks to fiber optics. Different from copper wire, fiber optic cable provides one of the most effective means today for safe and long-distance, and it also offers a number of advantages for us. For example, it can reduce the electrical fires in the transmission which is different from copper wire. Because they transfer information using light which do not cause electromagnetic interference. Fiber optic cable brings us so many benefits, and do you know what fiber optic cable is, how many kinds it has. This article will introduce everything about fiber optic cable.

What Is Fiber Optic Cable?

Fiber optic cable contains core, cladding, coating, strengthening member and outer jacket. The core of fiber optic cable carries the actual light signal and the cladding is a layer of glass surrounding the core. The outer jacket provides for the shielding and conductors within the cable because of the fragility of the bare fiber. Fiber optic cable is a very thin strand of pure glass which acts as a waveguide for light over long distances. It uses a principle known as total internal reflection. From this description, we know the basic information about fiber optic cable. We will divide fiber optic cable into two categories in the following part.

The Types of Fiber Optic Cable: Single Mode and Multimode

In fiber optic communications, single mode and multimode fiber constructions are used depending on the application. In single mode fiber optic cable, only one mode is propageted “straight” through the fiber. In multimode fiber optic cable, light travels through the fiber following different light paths called “mode.”

Single mode fiber optic cable can transmit information with higher capacity. Compared to multimode fiber, it can keep the fidelity of each light pulse over long distance, and it exhibits no dispersion caused by multiple modes. Single mode fiber optic cable also exhibits lower fiber attenuation than multimode optic cable fiber. So it can transmit more information at the same time. Because of smaller core diameter, coupling light into the core is more difficult. Tolerances for single mode connectors and splices demand more. There is another important feature—single fiber optic cable ensure the great performance of system based on its nonlinearities.

Multimode core diameters are much bigger than single mode fiber, and it can transfer more light. Multimode core is set up with multiple rings with different refractive light indexes. These rings allow the light to travel over longer distance without loss of continuity. Multimode fiber optic cable are less expensive and easy to work with. Multimode fiber provides high bandwidth at high speeds like single mode. But transmission distance is shorter than that of single mode fiber. The key benefit of multimode fiber optic cable is the inexpensive electronics used to terminate the fiber.

Conclusion

Fiber optic cable is used to connect servers and users in a variety of network settings and also help in increasing the accuracy and speed of data transmission. Fiber optic cable is divided into two kinds: single mode fiber optic cable and multimode fiber optic cable. Single mode fiber optic cable can transmit signal over a long distance but it is expensive. Multimode fiber optic cable is cheaper but it can just transmit signal over a shorter distance. Two kinds of fiber optic cable can satisfy the different demand of customer.