is copper wire is as fast as fiber optics?

Question

how can they come to this faithful conclusion when a signal is converted from copper to a fiber op cable then back to copper wire.

is there a computer that processes at light speed? does your house modem/router operate at light speed?

im pretty sure there is no technology that exists without circuit boards

and how fast is that signal converted if its converted twice?

Answer 1

The speed of an electrical signal in a copper wire is about 66 to 80 percent of the speed of light. In a fiber optic cable the speed is about 66 percent. So it's not faster. But fiber optic cables are better suited for transmitting huge amounts of data over long distances. Copper wire however is more practical for the "last mile". So conversion is needed.

Answer 2

A fibre optic link will be supplied with a fibre optic transmitter from a signal source. The speed of the source will determine the speed of the fibre optic link.



IBM have been experimenting with optical computers for years. No sign of any commercial offerings as yet. A house modem/router doesn't work at light speed, if you had my broadband system it's barely faster than a Morse key on occasion.



There are other non-commercial ways of wiring technology such as vacuum tube amplifiers which use a metal chassis and tag strips for component connection. Home brewed circuits and other prototype circuits can use what is known as "bird's nest" construction where all the connections are made between components without using a PCB, breadboard or a plug style vector board or similar. The result looks like a bird's nest hence the name.



A converted signal goes as fast as the slowest part of the signal path. So it's like being stuck behind two trucks on a single carriageway road then when they are abreast on a dual carriageway road and then back to a single carriageway, you are still stuck at 40-50 odd mph behind them. Not the greatest analogy but close enough.

Answer 3

No copper isn't as fast for signal transmission as fiber optics. You have to take into account that even though you have to convert the signal light is still moving at a much higher rate of speed. So much so that even with conversion it is faster than copper wire transmission wires. An example is the first transatlantic telegraph wire, and other long distance wires. When we make Long distance transmission signals, they are only delayed a few seconds at most(when not using Satellites), this would be in the multiple minutes with copper wires. Electricity moves at a billionth the speed of light. If you think of it as a train, when you begin to move from a stop the train cars will all almost instantly tighten up when the train engine begins to move, however they encounter resistance, and the train, cars in tow, will start to move, this entire train moving is like the flow of electricity. Now if you imagine instantly moving at the speed of light, like light speed in star wars, that would be the difference between the two. Even though, they may have the same distance to go say about 10 miles the electrical signal has such a fraction of the speed conversion really doesn't matter.



And no, no computer that I know of process at light speed, that is due to how a computer works. It is a series of micro transistors wich are little on off switches, these add up and make binary code, wich can make true false answers. These can be compiled into tasks etc...... To make a light speed computer you would have to change how it works. There are suppercomputers, some that are attempting to use supperconductors, and there are Quantom computers that in theory work when they are on and when they are off, makeing, also they may end up being nearly as fast as a light speed computer. Hope this helps.

Answer 4

When we talk of the 'speed' of a communication channel we mean the 'data rate', i.e. how many bits per second can we send down the line?



Several things limit how 'fast' we can signal data along a wire etc. One of the most important things to consider is the bandwidth (what is the maximum frequency the transmission line can support). The bit rate will be approximately equal to the bandwidth, as the line gets longer and the signal to noise ratio gets smaller, then the possible data rate decreases below this level. For a very short line, eg a USB cable, we could send data at the rate of gigabits per second. For a long line example a copper telephone line, the bandwidth is about 1 to 5 MHz. With clever modulation techniques we can get 10s of megabits per second (for example ADSL), but the signal to noise ratio limits this, and the longer the line, the higher the noise, and the lower the data rate. With a fiber optic cable, we dont have such a problem with noise or bandwidth, and so an optical fiber can support a much higher data rate. The transmitters and recievers on each end are still made from copper and circuit boards, but they dont need to send data over a long distance via copper, so the bandwidth and noise is no problem within the transmitter/reciever itself, so we can have these operating a gigabits per second, and the optical fiber cable can operate this fast too. Basically: short pieces of copper can operate very fast, gigabits per second. Long bits of copper are limited: maybe 10s of megabits for twisted pair, 100s of megabits per second over coax. Long and short pieces of fiber can operate very fast: gigabits and terabits per second. So if we use optical fiber for the long runs, and only short pieces of copper at either end, we can still obtain potentially gigabits per second of speed!