Optical fiber

The evolution of the optical fiber

How was invented the optical fiber

The history of the optical fiber is really short it started in England in 1966, where it was installed a proof and two years later a lot of companies started to buy this material in big quantities. Before, the discovered of the optical fiber some scientists investigate of the use of the light in telecommunication but they hadn't got canal for transmit the information with that technology because of that a lot of scientists worked to make a material today known like optical fiber. The first problem of the optical fiber was that it absorb the light and this difficult the process of transmit the information, later were created purest crystals which transmit better the light. The first transatlantic cable to use optical fiber was TAT-8 , which went in to operation in 1988.

the TAT-8 is a cable which connect UUEE with France and British. This cable enable to transmit information at a speed of 20 Mb/s. And it support around 40.000 telephonic lines. It cable stopped to work in 2002.

Advantages and disadvantages

The advantages of the optical fiber over the conventional materials is that it has more protection in humid zones,it resist the water and the fungs, is cheaper, lighter, and the cable is thinner that the copper cable so in the site of a cable of copper there can be a lot of optical fiber cables. And the disadvantages are that the installation is very expensive, it is very difficult to repair a broken cable and the fibers are very fragile.

The optical fiber is constituted by a glass made by sand or sometimes is a plastic, almost without refraction coated with a very reflecty material so the light travel through the cable bouncing thousand of times until arrive to its destine. Transmit the information through the optical fiber is like through radio waves, it is transmitted by electromagnetic waves the difference is that the radio wave is measured in meters an the light waves are measured in micrometers here is the speed difference.

In the Internet nets it make a revolution, the speed of the transmission of a telephonic cable was about 30.000 Bs with this speed you could wait for minutes to enter in a web and with the optical fiber increase the speed until 2.000.000 Bs.

How install underwater telecommunicate cables?

When those cables were near the coast, there installed in to a concrete coated to protect the cable from the boat anchor and the shark bites. When it is been installed on offshore it is suspended in under the water it don't be in contact with the sea bed. This cables are installed by an specific boats, those boats in the stern has an opening where the cable is left on the sea.