Fiber Optic
Our current age of technology is the result of many brilliant inventions and discovers, but it is our ability to transmit information and the media we use to do it, that is, perhaps most responsible for its evolution. Progressing from the copper wire of a century ago to today’s fiber optic cable, our increasing ability to transmit more quickly and over longer distances has expanded the boundaries of our technological development in all areas. Today’s low-loss glass fibre optic cables offer almost unlimited bandwidth and unique advantages over all previous developed transmission media. The basic point-to-point fibre optic transmission system consists of three basic elements: the fibre optic cable and the optical receiver and the fibre optic cable. Optical communications date back two centuries to the optical telegraph that French engineer Claude Chappe invented the 1790s. His system was a series of semaphores mounted on towers, where human’s operators relay messages from one tower to the other. It beat hand carried messages hands down, but by the mid-19th century was replaced by the electric telegraph, leaving a scattering of “Telegraph Hills”, as it almost visible legacy.
