You may have seen plastic fibers carrying colored lights in decorative applications. What you may not have seen are the real glass fiber optic cables that are now the foundation of our communication and computer networks. Many thousands of miles of installed fiber optic cable carry many types of information underground, in tunnels, building walls, ceilings, and other places you don’t see. For examples of uses of optical fiber in our daily life include applications such as:
- computer networking
- broadcasting
- medical scanning
- military equipment
In recent years, other fiber optic uses have arisen. Fiber optic cables have become the backbone for MANs, WANs and LANs. There has been a trend toward “FTTX” or “Fiber to the XXXX” applications. That is, for example, Fiber to the:
- Home (FTTH)
- Curb (FTTC)
- Premise (FTTP)
- Building (FTTB)
- Node (FTTN)
Initially, fiber optic uses were primarily trunk cable lines designed to carry signals to larger populated areas. Over time, theses cables have extended their reach to the home, the building etc, giving rise to the FTTX trend.
