In the smart age, both factories and office buildings are developing in the direction of cost savings, environmental protection and efficient energy use. With the improvement of the level of intelligence, the supporting network infrastructure must catch up.

In the past, standard network facilities used copper to meet the bandwidth and service needs of tenants. However, today’s technological development has far exceeded the level that copper infrastructure can support. And if you upgrade the copper infrastructure, it will not only cost too much, but will also fall into an annoying cycle of reintroduction. Copper is not only bulky, but also requires the installation of a cooling system, resulting in further reduction in available space and increased maintenance costs. Although copper networks have lower initial costs, they ultimately result in high costs in terms of maintenance, replacement, and tenant satisfaction.

With the increasing reliance on high-bandwidth technologies such as virtual reality, augmented reality and the Internet of Things, wired networks are bound to face unprecedented pressure.  Deloitte pointed out that in order to solve this problem, it is necessary to invest in the development of end fiber or to develop a fiber network with highly concentrated cellular base stations and access points. Deloitte said that without more end fiber support, operators will not be able to achieve the expected four times mobile data traffic growth during 2016-2021.

As a more efficient upgrade to copper, the fiber infrastructure provides near-infinite bandwidth capacity and a highly scalable system, ensuring that buildings meet the needs of tenants for services and applications over the years to come. In the long run, choosing a fiber infrastructure will not only save costs, but as technology and application requirements evolve, it will ensure that buildings provide tenants with the connectivity they need in the future.

 Comparison of the composition of copper and optical cables

In order to understand the excellent quality of fiber optic cable, we must first understand the fiber that is fine to the hair filament in the cable, and the precision required in the manufacturing process.  In order for the cable to lose any encoded information during long-distance transmission, each fiber must be extremely pure and clear. In order to achieve such high standards of clarity, manufacturers must strictly monitor all aspects of the manufacturing process, because any slight difference in density can cause light scattering, resulting in signal loss.

The manufacturing process of Corning fiber is to react the gas under the flame to form glass particles, and the particles are deposited layer by layer around the target rod. The fiber consists of two parts. The core and outer layer of the inner layer are called the cladding. The cladding reflects the laser signal back to the core and allows it to travel along the path of the core. In order for the fiber to transmit optical signals more efficiently, Corning allows the core to have a higher index of refraction than the cladding, and the cladding is like a mirror that binds the optical signal to the core.

In the drawing process, the drawing process of pulling the light bar into a thin glass line of several thousand kilometers is one of the most critical processes. Precise control of wire drawing time and temperature is directly related to the high transparency and low signal loss required by the customer.  Finally, the fiber is specially treated to make it easy to bend, even if it is wrapped around a dead corner of the building or around the fiber rod.

As a transmission medium, optical fibers have great advantages, and optical fibers have a high total bandwidth potential in terms of the number of different signal transmissions and information encoding or modulation speed.

On the other hand, the copper wire is bulky and was originally designed to transmit voice call data via electrical pulses. Due to the vulnerability of environmental factors such as temperature and electromagnetic fluctuations, the transmission quality of copper cables decreases rapidly over a distance of two kilometers. Although the copper cable is bulky, its tension tolerance is very low.  The most worrying thing is that copper cables can transmit power and are easily eavesdropped, which leads to a total network paralysis. In the absence of effective monitoring techniques, damaged or worn copper cables may be completely short-circuited or even cause a fire.

Compared with copper cables, optical fibers can transmit optical signals hundreds of kilometers away, with minimal attenuation loss and interference from other nearby power transmissions.  After the fiber installation is completed, the maintenance cost is also much lower than that of the copper wire. Fibers are lighter, smaller, and more durable than copper cables, and are not easily damaged unless they are vandalized. Although the fiber is made of glass, each inch is stronger than steel and more durable than copper. In addition, the cable can also save fire costs, because the light will not catch fire, and the cable will not cause a fire.

 The total cost of ownership of fiber is lower than that of copper

In terms of cost, the initial installation cost of the fiber is higher than that of the copper cable, but due to the excellent durability and long life cycle of the fiber, the total cost of ownership is lower than that of the copper cable. In terms of operation and maintenance, all-fiber networks do not need to deploy traditional telecommunications rooms like copper networks, thereby saving many costs such as uninterruptible power supplies (UPS), field data, and floor space that require cooling systems.

These overall costs of copper cables tend to be higher than the extra cost of fiber optic equipment in a centralized fiber infrastructure and take up more space in a limited space. The cabling space is much smaller than that of copper cables. In the past, copper wires may occupy a large amount of limited space in an office or area. Today, smaller diameter ultra-fine fibers require fewer cable slots and have higher flexural strength for maximum use.

Congested cable troughs used in copper cables can now easily accommodate these ultra-fine fibers in a limited amount of available space without the need to install new cable troughs. Even if you need to install a new cable trough, the physical space it takes up is much smaller than before, because the cable used for ultra-fine fiber is much smaller, so you can accommodate more cables in the same array. In this way, operators can not only have more space to expand in the future, but also can rent space to other operators, and will soon get more revenue.

 Upgrading to a fiber network is very simple

Despite the significant advantages of fiber optics, many network owners have been reluctant to adopt it due to concerns about complexity and high cost. Compared to the two, the cost of copper is not much lower than that of an all-fiber network. Although the initial installation cost of fiber optic cable may be higher than copper cable, the durability and reliability of the fiber can reduce the total cost of ownership (TCO). In addition, as technology advances, the cost of fiber optic cables and related components will continue to decline.

The migration of copper to fiber is not difficult, because there are specialized fiber optic transceivers that enable seamless migration from legacy copper systems to fiber infrastructure without disrupting existing systems. There are a variety of fiber optic transceivers to choose from depending on network type, link speed and distance requirements. In addition, during the transition, the fiber optic cable is also compatible with existing hardware, eliminating the need for large-scale adjustments and additional costs.

Proper network planning ensures flexible network expansion to meet future network speed and bandwidth growth needs. As technology moves forward, we are entering a world of interconnectedness, and all-fiber networks ensure that infrastructure can be upgraded as needed.