Tomorrow's Networks Will Run on Fiber Optics

 The long-running debate about whether to use fiber optics or copper in the network is over.  Fiber won years ago among telecom service providers in long-haul, metro and residential networks.  It's quickly taking over in mobile networks now, where it handles backhaul chores today.

Inevitably fiber will dominate enterprise networks, just as it does in today's public networks.  Since fiber will serve most access points and radio base stations in the near future, whether an enterprise user connects to the network via a mobile (4G/Wi-Fi) or a fixed-line device, fiber optics will carry most of the traffic.

Fiber is the better choice for connectivity across the board. Simply because: the business drivers are the same everywhere.

Only fiber, with its practically unlimited bandwidth, can handle the skyrocketing, video-driven volumes of traffic.

FTTH Drop Cable

Only fiber, with its long reach, reliability, space savings, immunity to interference and relatively lower cost, can help both public and enterprise network operators control their CapEx/OpEx budgets while also delivering top-notch services at ever-faster speeds.

Consider just a few of fiber's advantages in the enterprise:

• Compared with copper infrastructure, a fiber-based network delivers practically unlimited bandwidth now.  The Tellabs Optical LAN, for example, already delivers up to 1G to the desktop.

• To meet ever-increasing bandwidth needs, network operators can upgrade fiber-optic cables with new electronics, rather than ripping out and replacing copper cables. Thanks to their huge capacity, fiber-optic cables installed today should last 25 years or more.

• Copper cables can extend only 100 meters out from the electronics, but fiber-optic cables can reach up to 30 kilometers —300 times farther.

• Fiber-optic cable eliminates, over an 18-mile reach, all of the optical-electrical-optical (OEO) conversions that copper-based enterprise LANs require, thereby saving up to 80% of the power consumption of a traditional LAN.

• Optical LANs require no management, maintenance nor repair.

• Unplanned network downtime on an Optical LAN totals less than 5 ½ minutes per year, while the average copper-based LAN is down for almost 9 hours annually.

• Today’s fiber-optic cables cost less than copper — and are up to 50% less costly to install than copper cabling for LANs.

Research by ITU and other organizations predicts the world's volume of mobile data traffic will grow at a compound annual rate of 78% between 2011 and 2016.  Enterprise users, with their smartphones, laptops and tablets, will account for a lot of that growth.

So the only way enterprise network operators can satisfy the demand for bandwidth and maximize their return on infrastructure investments is the same way that public network operators do it:  by deploying fiber.

For purchasing more high quality fiber optics with low cost or for more products’ information, please contact a Sopto representative by calling 86-755-36946668, or by sending an email to info@sopto.com.