What Is Fiber Optic Cable?

From a technical standpoint, fiber optic cable consists of a bundle of glass or plastic rods that can transmit data signals. Fiber optic cable can send and receive in both analog and digital formats, and can carry video, voice, and internet packets. To put it in perspective, a single glass or plastic rod can carry 100 channels of television or 100,000 telephone calls. As the number of rods increase in a bundle, the bandwidth increases accordingly.

Fiber optic cable is now being used to offer Internet service in some areas. With speeds advertised at 30 Mbps downstream and up to 5 Mbps upstream, fiber optics will certainly lead the pack for speed offerings. The fastest cable offering can rarely reach 30 Mbps downstream, and fiber optic cable appears to be able to offer 5x the upload speed.

Verizon currently has a fiber optic offering called FiOS. FiOS stands for Fiber Optic Service and is being rolled out in test markets in Texas, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and New York as well as smaller markets across the United States. FiOS will offer a bundled offering of phone, TV, and Internet services on one bill and should be widely available by Q3 of 2007.

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