Fiber Power
Fiber Power
Fiber optic technology is all the rage as newcomers to the television business make noise about the high-capacity transmission medium.
And rightly so. Since cable companies begin installing optical fiber in the late 1980s it has transformed the industry. Over hair-thin glass strands that transmit waves of light, fiber optic lines can deliver massive amounts of information – from TV channels to Internet content to phone calls – with tremendous scale and reliability.
Cable should know. The U.S. cable industry has made fiber optics a centerpiece of a massive, multi-billion dollar investment program that has brought new capabilities to millions of cable customers.
Today, cable customers across the country are connected to a high-capacity network that’s powered by fiber-optic transmission lines. By rebuilding systems to incorporate fiber optic lines, cable companies have been able to leapfrog previous generations of technology. Thanks to fiber optic technology, cable companies now can deliver unprecedented performance in Internet services, digital and high-definition television, On Demand TV, digital phone services and more.
So why all the new fuss around fiber lately? Because recently, telephone companies have begun advertising campaigns designed to convey that they, too, have discovered the wonders of fiber optic technology. Phone companies are now busy building fiber optics into networks that originally were built purely to deliver phone calls over thin copper wires.
As the cable industry knows, television, high-speed Internet connections and new-generation phone services demand a better network. So as phone companies begin to embrace a television-delivery technology cable adopted years ago, the cable industry has a simple message: Welcome to the light.