Fiber optic cable, also known as optical fiber, is most often associated with high-speed internet. People know that it transmits data, but that is about the limit of most people’s knowledge. Many businesses and homes install fiber optic internet connections to attain the fastest digital speeds possible, but optical fiber is so much more than that.
Optical fibers are essentially thin strands of glass through which data is transmitted as light. Think of old pneumatic tube systems, where messages are sent to other areas of a building or complex inside containers that use air to travel through the tubes (or your bank drive through). Optical fiber is sort of similar, except that there is no air, the messages move at two-thirds the speed of light, and the tubes are the size of a human hair.
Traditional data transmission is done with metal wires using electrical signals. In optical fiber, infrared light moves through the glass and is measured by a sensor at the other end. Optical fiber is also made of glass (and sometimes plastic), making it immune to electrical interference. Interestingly, optical fiber is actually ‘slower’ than electrical wires signals, transmitting data at about two-thirds the speed of light. However, computers can transmit and decode messages from fiber optics much quicker than electrical wire, which is limited by how fast it can change voltages. In other words, data might arrive a tiny bit more quickly with electrical wire, but over the course of a few seconds, optical fiber can send a significantly higher volume of data.
Modern optical fibers were first pioneered in the 1950’s and 60’s by Charles Kao and George Hockham, who theorized that optical fiber could be used in telecommunications with pure enough glass. Early fiber optics suffered high signal loss, where after a few meters the data would be lost due to impurities and imperfections in the glass. Improvements in the purity significantly increased the length in which fiber optic cables could transmit data without being boosted by repeaters. By the 1980s, optical fibers could stretch for many miles with virtually no attenuation (signal loss).
Innovation on optical fiber was rapid, so that by the 1990s, telecommunications companies began replacing the copper wire transmission networks with bundles of fiber optics weaved together in cables. Submarine optical fiber cables were laid across oceans to connect continents, and vast networks of telecommunications infrastructure were built on land.
Despite our perception of the internet existing within ‘the cloud’ as a network of signals, the internet has extensive physical infrastructure, which increasingly depends on fiber optics. Even if your home or business does not have a fiber optic connection, you are still using fiber optics every time you connect to the internet on a computer or smartphone. There are over 100 million different servers in the world that power every webpage on the internet, and every single one relies on optical fiber at some point in the infrastructure landscape. In fact, 90 percent of all the money in the world only exists digitally, making the internet the most valuable thing in the world.
Today, fiber optics are an absolutely critical foundation of modern society, and they are constantly being improved. Extreme purity fiber optics can stretch for thousands of miles with almost zero data loss. An increasing number of homes are being installed with direct fiber optic connections for extremely fast and stable internet. The technology is crucial for AI development and cloud computing. This ongoing innovation ensures that fiber optics will continue to advance alongside new technology that increases global connectivity. As demand for faster, more reliable data transmission grows each year, fiber optics remain as a pillar of the digital world.
Think transmitting data and revolutionizing the Internet is all all the extensive fiber optic network has to offer? Think again. Unlike most elements of infrastructure that serve a single function or have one primary benefit, fiber optic cable packs unexpected, multiple and concurrent benefits that create value that ripples positively throughout the entire economy. Stay tuned to learn about distributed fiber optic sensing soon.
Written by Owen Rogers, Policy Fellow
The Alliance for Innovation and Infrastructure (Aii) is an independent, national research and educational organization working to advance innovation across industry and public policy. The only nationwide public policy think tank dedicated to infrastructure, Aii explores the intersection of economics, law, and public policy in the areas of climate, damage prevention, eminent domain, energy, infrastructure, innovation, technology, and transportation.