Fiber Patch Cables - Fiber Patch Cables

In the race to transfer more data faster, wireless networking has yet to catch up to the girth and stability of cable. Since its conception in the 1960s, fiber-optics have grown into the fastest means of data transmission ever created. Shattering its own records with each innovation, fiber optic is a technology that is not likely to be replaced anytime soon.

A “patch cable” is a cable that connects two devices together for the communication of data. Many cables fit under this umbrella term, from the small nut-and-needle coaxial cable that runs to televisions to the CAT-5 networking cable which connects computers.

As the fastest patch cable, fiber optics can perform some amazing feats, like transfer a two hour movie in half a second. Just last year, a $650 million, 17,000 km (11,000 mi.) undersea fiber optic cable connected began sharing broadband between Europe and East Africa.

Meanwhile, Verizon and AT&T are racing to offer the best in fiber-optic communications for consumer use. Verizon’s FIOS and AT&T’s U-verse both run fiber optics patch cables to neighborhoods rather than cities.

Fiber-optics has proven such a powerful technology that father of fiber optics Charles A. Kao received the Nobel Prize for his work in the field. The Nobel organization noted in their report that fiber optic was so widespread that, if every fiber were placed end on end, it would circle the globe 25,000 times over.

Although wireless internet has grown as a useful and versatile utility, for the time being it is cable, not wireless signals, that continues to move the bulk of the world’s data.