Business Solutions for Winter 2020

WINTER 2020 7 SOLUTIONS Fiber Broadband Connections Bridge the “Last Mile” Fiber broadband is the fastest and most reliable method of delivering high-speed internet. Here’s why: Like DSL, cable, and fixed wireless, fiber broadband connections bridge the “last mile” between the mainstream internet “backbone” and the customer’s location. But that’s where the similari- ties stop. Only fiber networks transmit data using light over specialized cables packed with glass fibers. Since light moves at 186,000 miles per second, this enables internet speeds up to 1,000 Megabits (one Gigabit) per second. While you may think of fiber as a new technology, the internet “backbone” that connects cities and countries has been built with fiber-optic cables since the dawn of the internet. The first submarine fiber-optic cable connected the U.S. to France and Britain in 1988. What’s new about fiber broadband is the use of fiber-optic cables to connect the “last mile.” Panora Telco and Guthrie Center Communications were the first in this area to deploy “last mile” fiber-optic cables. Because of this investment, your business can connect to more opportunity, more productivity, and more effi- ciency. For details on our Fiber Fast services, call Panora Telco at (641) 755-2424 or Guthrie Center Communications at (641) 332-2000. Over the last 20 years or so, fiber-optic lines have taken over the telecommunications industry, primarily to increase the speed of digital information transmission. When fiber-optic cable replaces copper wiring, it also dramatically lowers costs, increases the data-carrying capacity of internet connections, and improves phone clarity and TV reception. To help you understand the basics of how a fiber-optic cable works, we’ll start with this example: Imagine a flexible plastic pipe that’s several miles long with its insides coated with a perfect mirror. Now imagine you are looking into one end of the pipe and several miles away at the other end, a friend turns on a flashlight and shines it into the pipe. Because the interior of the pipe is a perfect mirror, the flashlight’s light will reflect off the sides of the pipe and you will see it at the other end. If your friend were to turn the flashlight on and off in a Morse code fashion, your friend could communicate with you through the pipe. That is the essence of how a fiber-optic cable works. However, making a cable out of a mirrored tube would be bulky and difficult. That’s why fiber-optic cable is actually made out of incredibly pure glass, so pure so that even though it is several miles long, light can still make it through. This glass is drawn into a very thin strand with a thickness comparable to that of a human hair, and then coated in two layers of reflective plastic. A light source—typically a laser—switches on and off rapidly at one end of the cable to transmit digital data. The light travels through the glass strands and continuously reflects off of the inside of the mirrored plastic coatings in a process known as total internal reflection. Systems based on fiber optics can transmit billions of bits of data per second, and they can even carry multiple signals along the same fiber by using lasers of different colors. How Does Fiber-Optic Cable Work?