Optical fiber

Photo source : How Stuff Work

An optical fiber (or fibre) is a glass or plastic fiber that carries light along its length.

Light is kept in the core of the optical fiber by total internal reflection.

Fiber optics has several advantages over traditional metal communication lines:

Fiber optic cables have a much greater bandwidth than metal cables. This means that they can carry more data.

• Fiber optic cables are less susceptible than metal cables to interference.

Fiber optic cables are much thinner and lighter than metal wires.

• Data can be transmitted digitally rather than analogically.

The main disadvantage of fiber optics is that the cables are expensive to install. In addition, they are more fragile than wire and are difficult to splice.