Opinion : What Is A Fiber Optic Communications System, and How does it work?

Fiber cables are all over Vinton.

Any one of those lines can connect us with the outside world. There are lots of possible configurations, but here is the one that might be the best for Vinton.

If we connect to two lines in town, coming from different providers, we would have redundant communications service. If one line gets cut, the system automatically switches to the other and we don’t even know it.

Our loop in Vinton (very center of diagram) connects to those lines. The loop includes the servers in the communications utility. Those servers send signals to the fiber drops that connect each home or business.

That line can connect with telephones, televisions, and wireless modems to provide all three services inside tour homes or business. Looking to the very left of the diagram: Vinton would connect with three partners.

Starting at the top is the IPTV partner; fancy letters meaning internet protocol television. We also connect, through many other fiber lines owned by any one of many companies, with a major internet hub (the WWW).

Those are located in cities like Chicago, Omaha, St. Louis, etc. Those hubs transport our internet traffic. We would have to pay for that digital traffic and that is known as “transport costs.” We also need a switch for routing telephone calls.

The smallest switch can serve thousands of homes and businesses and can cost nearly $1M. Instead of buying one, there might be the possibility to buy excess capacity from other companies.

A fiber system we can offer what’s known as “symmetrical service.” That means instead of only using 20 megabytes to download and 5 megabytes to upload, like most providers in Vinton, we can offer service that is 100 megabytes to upload and download.

Copper systems can’t do that. Remember the hours it takes us to upload a file? That’s because our upload speeds are very, very slow. They often measure less than 2 megabytes.

To learn how fast your internet is, visit www.speedtest.net.