What is the difference between copper cable and fibre optic cable - Which Should You Choose?
Channel: NM Cabling Solutions
Date: 2021-03-01

What is the difference between copper cable and fibre optic cable 

Fibre Optic Cabling Or Copper Data Cabling – Which Should You Choose?
Fiber Optic Ethernet Cable vs Copper Data Cabling.
Structured cabling offers a whole system of cables along with connectors and related hardware for voice and data cabling. It is applicable for enterprise data network as well as office fit out cabling. Your preference for IT cabling material can directly affect the productivity of your IT arrangement, the trouble-free and fast transfer of data across the network, the power consumption, and the overall impact on the environment. Usually, enterprise IT networks consider copper data cabling, mostly from the Cat 5e, Cat 6 and Cat6a specifications for data cabling. They also have a range of specifications for fiber optic Ethernet cable installations.
Transmission in the cables are vastly different in that in fibre optic cabling the transmission of data is sent through light pulses down cores of glass and in copper data cables transmissions are sent via electrical pulses sent down copper connector wires
Copper Cabling
Copper cable is suitable as a short-range cable (less than 100m) that runs to support typical desktop applications, however, for a higher throughput of data, faster transmission speeds and bandwidth demands of recent intensive commercial application and telecommunications set the limit on cabling to approximate 10 GB/s. For instance, integration of AV cabling with an established IT cabling by use of Internet Protocol (IP). The advancement in IT cabling technology has resulted in wider adoption of the 10G cabling, which empowered the data transfer speed to reach 10 GB/s over Ethernet networks.
Fiber Optic Ethernet Cable
Fibre optic cabling contains very thin fibres of plastic or glass, which are called optical fibres. Every strand is capable of carrying a higher bandwidth over a greater distance. The network bandwidth and speed of data transmission is substantially higher through fibre optic cabling as compared to copper cabling.
A fiber optic Ethernet cable also consumes less space, is less heavy, and has a higher density, and fibre splicing allows it to be laid in much longer runs. Expert organisations are preferring fibre optic cabling for increasing number of process and data-intensive applications. This includes Unified Communications (UC), and access to cloud-based and cloud hosted services.
Which is faster, Copper or Fibre
Copper cables have in many cases the same capabilities of transmission speeds as fibre cables. However Fibre Optic cables have the added advantage of transmitting those speeds over greater distances
The comparison between copper cable and fiber optic Ethernet cable when transmitting 10 gig highlights the difference
Copper data cables are generally standardised at 90 / 100m cable links. 

What are the disadvantages of fibre optic cable?
As with all cabling infrastructure and technology design, different systems require different connections. If the requirements for connections are small then fibre optic connections can have a higher cost of hardware for transmission vs copper cabling. A Cat6a cable can link two switches with no requirements for additional hardware but a fibre cable link will require additional fibre transmission and receiver hardware and the associated additional costs
What is the disadvantage of copper cable?
The distance limitation of copper cable is a main disadvantage of copper cabling installations. User outlets will generally be designed to be within 90m of a data cabinet to maintain the industry standards and guarantee the required speeds over the chosen copper cable specified.
Is fibre optic cable expensive?
The components of fibre optic cable are no greater cost than copper cable components. Furthermore when the core size of the fibre cable increase economies of scale of cost come into play and the price by core / link reduces
Will fiber optics replace copper in the future?
The price difference between fibre optic cabling and copper data cabling has narrowed as time has passed and that cost difference is changing here each type of cable is used. Data centres have moved predominantly more towards fibre optic cabling links as the requirement for increased bandwidth in the data centre environment has increased.
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