What Is Fiber Optics? Here's What You Need to Know

Dec 09, 2023

Fiber-optic networks are coming to more areas every year, and as more utility companies (think internet service providers and cable TV companies) add the feature as an option, more people are wondering how it's so different than traditional electrical cables.

If fiber optics is available in your area, or if you've just moved to an area where it's available for the first time, you may be wondering if it's worth the extra cost up-front to choose it for yourself — one way to help yourself answer that question is to understand what it is and how it works.

You may remember that around 2010 there was a point where fiber-optic lights were all the rage — they were bundles of translucent plastic strands that sent colored light from one end to the other, creating a kind of firework effect if you looked at it from the right angle.

As it turned out, those strands can also be used for more important things — like mass data transfer. Fiber optics is a method of data transfer carried out by long strands of glass or plastic, about as thick as a strand of hair, almost exactly like the ones in those fun little lamps.

"Data transfer" is sort of an umbrella term. It really refers to any signal being sent from one place to another — more specifically, in technology, it refers to a coded language spoken between devices. One device encodes the data into this language and sends it, and the other takes it and decodes it back into something we can use or understand.

The discovery of one of the simplest forms of data transfer available is actually responsible for the invention of one of modern society's favorite inventions: the telephone. In 1874, Alexander Graham Bell found that auditory signals — namely, peoples' voices — were able to travel from one end of a copper wire to another due to the way the sound reverberates through the material.

Fiber optics basically do the same thing with light. With fiber-optic cables, light pulses are sent from one end to the other, refracting off of the tiny particles of glass or plastic inside and coming out as a clear signal at the other end.

If you've ever held all the strands of a fiber-optic lamp together and looked at it from the top, you know that it's always a much brighter and more vibrant light color. More importantly, though, it usually reveals pretty clearly what the light coming from the base actually looks like. That end-to-end clarity is what makes fiber optics great at data transfer.

Fiber-optic cables are exactly what they sound like: cables, like the telephone wires you can see over your head in some places, made up of bundles of individual fiber optics. Bundling the cables together like this allows for faster transfer of bigger signals over longer distances than wires made of other materials.

Installing fiber-optic cables wouldn't be good for anything without some kind of entity or hub to transfer the data — and sending the data wouldn't do any good if it didn't have a standard meaning. In order to access and use fiber-optic cables for your home internet, phone, or cable, you'll need to join a fiber-optic network.

A fiber-optic network is any grouping of fiber-optic cables and connections that come from the same hub — almost always the central office of a company like Verizon. When the company sets up its network, it creates a language out of light signals, using colors and pulse patterns to signal different information.

The company's computers take information and code it into a unique light-language to send over the fiber-optic cables to a home or business that pays for the services. Then, when it reaches its destination, a box called a fiber terminal decodes the data, turning it back into something that can be used.

Fiber optics is increasingly popular because there are a number of advantages to using it over traditional copper cables. However, there are also some things they don't do as well.