Initially
the major limitations of fibres were (as with any new technology) due to
technological problems and high cost. Current high levels of production of
fibre have reduced the cost of fibre itself and wide implementation has led to
reductions in the cost of related processes such as splicing (as it has become
a less specialised task).
Splitting
the signal currently requires an O/E and then several E/O conversions. With the
development of optical technologies there is now a clear possibility of a
totally optical network which would remove such problems.
Dispersion
is clearly the major limitation on bandwidth and counteracting it requires the
added cost of more regenerators. Again, current research is increasing the
distance between repeaters to extreme limits, requiring regenerators only at
fibre ends for most applications (even for links such as those spanning the
We are
currently in the middle of a rapid increase in the demand for data bandwidth across
the Earth. For most applications optical fibres are the primary solution to
this problem. They have potentially a very high bandwidth, with many of the
bandwidth limitations now being at the transceivers rather than being an
intrinsic property of the fibre allowing easy upgrading of systems without
relaying cable. The price has decreased significantly so that even over short
distances fibres in the long term can compete with (for example) Category 5
twisted pair cable. This is creating a surge in the deployment of fibre both in
backbones of networks and in topologically horizontal cabling, which in turn is
supporting and propelling the industry into further research.
With the
adoption of new techniques such as DWDM, soliton
transmission, and ultimately the purely optical network, we have a medium that
will satisfy our communication needs for the foreseeable future.