To Fibre Or Not To Fibre – What Is Your Connection?

“I have enough moral fibre, thanks. I never do anything I shouldn’t.” Said no one, ever! And have you ever overheard anyone smugly saying, “I consume exactly the right amount of dietary fibre every day – my digestion is perfect?” The truth is, we could all do with a little more fibre in our lives. In fact, is too much fibre even a thing? No matter in what form it comes, fibre is good for us. Especially when we talk about fibre optic Internet connections.

Those of us who are not Millennials no doubt remember the dark old days of dial-up Internet, where pages literally took entire minutes to download, and you always found yourself holding your breath as you waited for the ear screeching dial-up connecting tone to stop so that you knew your connection had gone through. Then came ADSL and Ethernet cables, and before we knew it, the wonder of Wi-Fi. Who’d have thought it could get any better than that?

But then there was fibre optic internet. Suddenly, fibre wasn’t just for breakfast cereal.

In South Africa, the fibre boom started when our government signed legislation allowing private telecommunications operators to build their own networks. It wasn’t long before companies such as Telkom, Vodacom, Neotel and others began introducing fibre optic networks into residential and commercial areas around the country.

In the relatively short time since then, fibre has revolutionised the way we use the internet. Compared to the copper cables ADSL connections rely on, fibre is, well, light years ahead. It is extremely reliable and is not affected by adverse weather, such as storms or high temperatures. A huge plus for us in this country is that, unlike copper, fibre optic internet cables are not valuable on the illegal market, so there is little risk of them being stolen.

How Does Fibre Work?

Fibre optic technology uses pulses of light to carry data along fine strands of glass about the diameter of a human hair. Imagine you had a long flexible pipe, such a hosepipe, lined inside with mirrors. If you shone a light through this pipe, it would come out the other end, even if the pipe was bent or twisted. This is because the light reflects off the mirror-lined sides of the pipe. Optic fibres use glass instead of mirrors, but the effect is the same. Because glass is so incredibly pure, light still travels through it, even if the tube is several kilometres long.

What Are The Advantages Of Fibre Over Copper?

Fibre optic internet has an almost infinite number of advantages over traditional copper lines. Copper cabling has been the dominant way to “wire” homes since the invention of the telephone over 100 years ago. Its original purpose was to transmit a voice signal, and it is still perfectly adequate for this. However, it offers very little bandwidth, which is why it has severe limitations for modern day communications. Fibre optic internet cables have much higher bandwidths than copper cables, meaning they can carry much higher frequency ranges. Light is a very high-frequency signal, while copper wire loses signal strength at higher frequencies.

Some of the other key advantages of fibre include:

• Increased data transfer – A local area network (LAN) using copper lines can carry 3 000 telephone calls at once, for example. A similar system using fibre optics can carry over 10 times that number.
• Less interference – Fibre cables are not as vulnerable to electromagnetic interference and noise as copper wires. It’s possible to send a signal over 200kms without any real loss of quality. A copper cable signal degrades significantly over that distance.
• Faster transmission – Photons (used in fibre optics) travel at about 70% the speed of light, whereas electrons (used with copper wire) travel at less than one percent of the speed of light.
• Better signal quality – Fibre loses approximately three percent of its signal strength over a 100m distance, whereas copper loses an incredibly 94 percent over the same distance.
• Safer – Copper wires can produce electromagnetic currents that not only interfere with your network, they also pose a fire hazard. Fibre optic cables, however, don’t conduct electricity, so are much safer.
• Stronger – Fibre optic cables do not break as easily, or need replacing as often as copper wires.

The Future Of Fibre

Because fibre optic internet connectivity is still relatively new in South Africa, we could be forgiven for thinking that it represents the pinnacle of communications technology, However, just as copper wire technology evolved from telegraph lines to co-axial cables to ADSL internet connections, fibre is also still on a journey of evolution and improvement.

Experts predict that better quality glass will allow signals to travel for even longer distances before needing to be regenerated. We will also see the introduction of wavelength multiplexing, which lets you put multiple channels on a single strand of fibre. This increases capacity through the transmission of two different-coloured light pulses at the same time.

OK, I Want Fibre Optic Internet, Now What?

Do you frequently use data-heavy functions such as video conferencing? Do you download large files, use Cloud-based apps or stream videos? Then you know how taxing this is on your bandwidth. Use a couple of these greedy functions, and your whole system slows down, taking your productivity with it. Why not chat to the tech-sperts at Huge Connect?

Outsourcing your IT network means you can focus on what your business does best, instead of wasting time and money trying to keep ahead of ever-changing communications technology. By outsourcing to Huge Connect, you can concentrate on satisfying your customers, and let us worry about everything else.

And don’t worry if you haven’t yet got fibre optic internet in your area. In our next blog, we’ll take a look at some great alternatives to suit your business and your pocket.