Talk:Optical fiber

electrical resistance

In the section "Comparison with electrical transmission", the article mentiones High electrical resistance for fiber optic cables. I'm wondering whether this means higher electrical resistance than electric cables, or complete electrical resistance instead. Would be nice if someone cleared that up.

• Well, electical resistance is never "complete" - it's always some finite value, even if it's really high. In general, the electical resistance of glass fibre is as high as any other piece of glass, i.e. pretty damn high. --Bob Mellish 15:27, 17 November 2005 (UTC)

• • Stupid me.. I mixed up with "Immunity to electromagnetic interference", which is printed just above it!!! Thanks anyway  :)

Corning

I was surprised to see Corning refered to as a British company. Unless there is something very subtle (like their distant origins), Corning is surely american - based in Corning, NY. Keck and co-workers, I am certain, did their pioneering work in the USA.

There are at least three different histories of the development of optical fibre - British, Japanese and American. The British credits Kao and Hockham and the Post Office Research Centre, The Japanese credits Nakahara and Sumitomo, the American credits Keck and Corning. That's a very simplistic summary, but the essence is correct - it depends mostly on the nationality of the author / teller of the history. My view? It was an idea whose time had come and all parties were innovating at the same time and contributed to the progress. +++++++++++ Actually, they each made complimentary contributions to the art. The BPO, known then, establihed the requirements through the Kao Hockman papers. Corning invented a viable process and material for making fiber. Other companies in Japan and elsewhere created many needed components for fiber systems. Numerous patent trials through the 1980's established the primacy of Corning's (a NY company) inventions, on a world wide basis. This is not to discredit the contributions of others in many very important areas. The case is clearly laid out in "The Silent War" Magaziner 1990.

Inconsistency in range

Which is correct? The article states "Typical single mode fibre optic cables can sustain transmission distances of 80 to 140 km" but then "Recent advances in fiber technology have reduced losses so far that no amplification of the optical signal is needed over distances of hundreds of kilometers". One or the other is the state of the art... which is it?

>> "Recent Advances" vs. "Typical Fiber". ;)

optical waveguide cables

While editing another wikipedia article (translated from German/Deutsch, if that makes any difference), I see the term "optical waveguide cables". Is that exactly the same thing as "optical fiber", or something different ? Is this phrase common enough to mention in the article ? --DavidCary 21:44, 17 May 2005 (UTC)

Fiber vs Fibre

Is there a reason why fibre is used instead of fiber 4 times in the article? The only mention I see is at the beginning, where it states that fibre is the British term. I can't see any contextual differences between the use of fiber and fibre, and unless someone has a reason, will change all instances to fiber.

>1. It helps with search engines >2. Brits and Aussies editing the page will use fibre, while USA uses fiber.

While I certainly want people to come read this page, whether they type "fibre" or "fiber" into their search engines, it just seems inconsistent for the article title to say "fiber" while the article text uses "fibre". --DavidCary 21:44, 17 May 2005 (UTC)

Please see Wikipedia:Manual of Style#National varieties of english. The guideline is for each article to be internally consistent. I have made all the uses of fibre consistent with the article title (fiber). The main gotcha would be if the Fibre Channel standard should be mentioned, the title of that standard uses the British spelling. To aid the search engines, there should be a "redirect page" from "Optical Fibre" to this page. If it's not there, I will figure out how to create it.--The Photon 16:18, 12 October 2005 (UTC)

Any reason why there's a 'See also Muggle' under the prospects for the future of fiber optic technologies? Seems to me some kid playing a prank. . .

Optical fiber in waveguides

“Optical fiber in waveguides” piece probably refers to some advanced integrated optics application, or some optical backplane application. However in present form is uninformative and misleading. Could somebody please correct this paragraph. Or, may be, we should remove it. --Sergiusz 23:27, 3 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I support removing the sectionThe Photon 05:01, 12 October 2005 (UTC)

Unless its meant to be a reference to something like [1], in which case, somebody please write it up so it makes sense.--The Photon 04:49, 23 October 2005 (UTC)

I am removing this section from the main article. Here is the old text in case someone would like to recreate it (--The Photon 05:05, 28 October 2005 (UTC)):

Optical fiber in waveguides

Waveguides are silicon chips with extremely thin and extremely flexed optical fibers on them. Companies like JDS Uniphase manufacture these waveguides for use in computers and in splitting boxes. A waveguide separates the different colors of light, and allows it to have the same signal sent in many directions. (see waveguides)

Britishisms

While I fully support alternate spellings, isn't claiming the Corning corporation a bit much?

Tb/s

"Large data-carrying capacity (thousands of times greater, reaching speeds of up to 1.6 Tb/s in field deployed systems and up to 10 Tb/s in lab systems)" these are Terabits or Terabytes?

Ans: Terabits

To be included, FO Transmission Records

RELEASE FRIDAY MARCH 22, 2002. Bell Labs scientists transmit 64 channels of data at 40 gigabits per second per channel (2.56 Tbps) over 4000 kilometers (2500 miles)

In OFC 2005 paper by a group from Agere Systems -- a record-setting fiber optic transmission rate of 3.2 Tbps. --Sergiusz 20:49, 16 September 2005 (UTC)

Added Manufacturing

Hello,

I added manufacturing by MCVD, but was unsure how to reference the article. Can someone please have a look at this? Thanks.

You did fine! One thing you might want to do now is to find those terms in your new text that reference other Wikipedia articles, and make them Wikilinks by enclosing the term in square brackets like so: [[Chemical vapor deposition]]. You can also reference an article using a different term than the actual article name, like so: [[Chemical vapor deposition|Modified Chemical Vapor Deposition]]; the first part is the actual article title and the second part is what will show up here in the article, for example: Modified Chemical Vapor Deposition.

Remember, though, Wiki standard practice is to only make a term a Wikilink the first time that it appears in the article. Subsequent reuses of the term aren't Wikilinked.

Also, you may want to "sign" your talk postings (here) by putting four tildes (~~~~) after your post. When you press "Save page", these will be replaced by your username or IP address in a handy Wikilinked format. A timestamp will also be included.

Atlant 13:54, 3 October 2005 (UTC)

Removed text on Svetlana Plant, Saint Petersburg

I removed this text:

Svetlana plant in Saint Petersburg, Russia was first who decided to use fiberoptics in house aronments and decorations. Namely in Fiberoptic UFO lamp, which look like this. [url]http://www.thingsthatglow.com/html/images/8612.jpg[/url]

The lamp from light travels through painted glass, then through fiberoptics.

Reason: Hecht mentions decorative lamps of this type around 1958, but gives no solid citation.

If there's any citation for these lamps at an earlier date in St Petersburg, please re-add the text with citation. If the St Petersburg lamp doesn't predate 1958, but if the image is available under a free license, consider using it to illustrate the "Other uses of Fiber Optics" section.

--The Photon 00:07, 30 October 2005 (UTC)

TODO list

Some areas where the article could be improved (feel free to edit):

• In the communications section, we have "Recent advances in fiber technology have reduced losses so far that no amplification of the optical signal is needed over distances of hundreds of kilometers." I believe such long links would actually contain amplifiers, but not repeaters. Can anyone confirm it?

• In the communications section, there should be some mention of soliton transmission. What I don't know is, are solitons used in real-world systems, or could they still become the next abandoned technology (like the coherent receiver systems of the '80s research lab).

• In the history section, the contributions of NTT are totally ignored.

• In the history section, the introduction of EDFAs into real-world service should be mentioned.

--The Photon 05:37, 5 November 2005 (UTC)