The Difference Between Optical Cable and Optical Fiber

First of all, to explain the significance of optical fiber communication: optical fiber communication is one of the most meaningful inventions since World War II. Without optical fiber communication, there would be no today's communication network.

In 1976, the world's first civil optical fiber communication line was opened, and human communication entered the "light speed era".

In the same year, China's first practical optical fiber was born at the Wuhan Research Institute of Posts and Telecommunications, which greatly shortened the gap between China and western developed countries in the field of optical communication, and opened a new era for China's optical fiber communication technology and industrial development.

Today, with the rapid development of the Internet, the Internet of Things is also growing rapidly. 5G is the basis for the realization of the Internet of Things. In this era of intelligence, our rapid economic development cannot be separated from the striving spirit of the Chinese nation. More importantly, each of us sticks to our post and works hard silently to let the world know China's speed.

 

As a veteran of the communication industry, I have witnessed the communication speed, experienced 2G introduced equipment, 3G equipment diversification, localization of 4G, and 5G internationalization. This is the development speed of China's wireless communication, from behind to follow, and finally to surpass.

PS: Optical fiber development process

In ancient times, there was no Internet, no optical cable, to quickly transmit information is only to use flying pigeons. 

With the rapid development of science and technology, human beings have entered the information age, with the increase in the amount of information, it is necessary to find a new way of transmission, after years of research, faster transmission speed, and transmission volume is larger, low loss of optical fiber communication was born, since then human beings entered the light age.

In 1870, British physicists discovered the principle of full reflection of light, which laid the foundation for the future optical fiber transmission of signals;

In 1880, the "optical phone" was invented to use the beam to transmit sound waves;

In 1966, Dr. Charles Kao published "The Optical frequency of the medium Fiber surface Waveguide", and created the world's first optical guide fiber that could be used for communication;

fibre-optical

Optical fiber main component is glass fiber, in glass dimension main component is high purity silica, in 1500 degrees temperature firing fiber prefabricated rod, fiber prefabricated rod made into the suspension into the wire furnace, can continuously drawing 7500 km length, an annealing tube, to prevent impurities and dust fall on the fiber, at 2200 degrees Celsius melting into soft embryos, after 1 meter long annealing tube, gradually cooling into 0.1 mm diameter glass wire, wire collector rotation drive fiber drawing and complete the collection of optical fiber. 

Optical fiber made of glass fiber can transmit optical signals thousands of kilometers away, and combine hundreds of thousands of optical fiber together to make optical cables like cables, which not only improves the strength of the optical fiber but also greatly increases the communication capacity.

This is the optical fiber production process, production is a slender glass optical fiber, if you melt fiber will find, that each fiber strip is transparent glass fiber, very brittle, easy to break, but you pull how also pull, this also melts fiber often hear some predecessors said fiber can't fold, easy to break. This is the nature of the optical fiber.

optical cable

The optical cable is generally said to put more than one optical fiber through the post-processing coat, layer upon layer of protection so that the optical fiber can be transmitted in the outdoor, or indoor environment, not easy to disconnect so that the optical fiber can adapt to all kinds of different environments. 

Optical cable as an important transmission of data information high-speed, affecting our life, listen to the most optical fiber to the home, in fact, should be called optical cable to the home, but it is a very thin optical cable, called leather cable. 

Optical cable mainly has these models: 6 core, 8 core, 12 core, 48 core, 72 core, 96 core, 144 core, 288 core, the most commonly used 6,8,12,24,48 core optical cable.

The difference between an optical fiber and optical cable, widely speaking, optical fiber is optical cable, is a kind of transmission medium. But strictly speaking, the two are different products, and the difference between the optical cable and the optical fiber is different: the optical fiber is a thin and soft medium for transmitting the light beam. 

Most optical fibers must be covered by several layers of a protective structure before use, and the covered cable is called optical cable. 

So optical fiber is the core part of the optical cable, optical fiber through some components are extremely attached protective layer protection constitutes the optical cable.