My name is Mark Young and I have been in the Fiber Cabling business for the past 10 years. We have completed thousands of successful installations including Network Cabling, Fiber Cabling and VOIP Telephone Systems. The network cabling community is a small community that is well connected. Over the years, I have partnered with cabling companies across the country. This website is the culmination of our work and leverages our partnerships countrywide.Fiber Cabling
Are Internet Speeds Changing Indefinitely?
Anyone who remembers the seemingly random data blip and bleep sounds of a dial up modem connecting to the internet in the mid-90s knows just how much times have changed since then. It is often said that the only constant is change, and the adage could not be truer than when it comes to the evolution in internet speeds.
Even at the turn of the century, a majority of consumers used a slow 56K (kilobytes per second) modem - a moment in the history of the World Wide Web easily identifiable by how slowly a file would download at this data speed. Even a basic compressed mp3 song download at that time would have taken hours or days to complete!
+ Read Full ArticleBroadband Internet Speeds Continue to Increase at an Alarming Rate
Broadband internet gained immediate attention when it first entered on the scene. Speeds were between 10 and 30 times faster than a dial up connection. Another advantage was the "always on" feature: instead of having to dial into the network, a nonstop connection was offered by broadband ISPs.
There seems to be no end in sight with respect to any potential limit of how fast internet connections will go in the future. Broadband internet service providers have been in an ongoing race to have the highest data transfer rates in megabits per second. In the early 2000s, an internet connection of 2Mbps was impressive; today, that connection would be laughable in comparison even with the typical broadband internet services that are currently offered.
In late 2011, PC Magazine named Comcast as the fastest provider of internet service in the USA, with broadband speeds up to a blazing 105Mbps (Megabits per second) download and 10Mbps upload. Google is also in the process of rolling out 1Gbps (nearly 10X that of Comcast’s fastest offering) networks in select regions.
Why Does Faster Internet Matter?
Due to the rapid increases that continue to occur, the modern marvels of the internet have far exceeded now-basic tasks like the ability to almost instantly download songs. It has become possible to stream high definition video in real time, whereas it would have taken hours of waiting for even a few seconds worth of this type of video to download at common broadband speeds only a decade ago. Movies can download in a reasonable period of time in full quality, or streamed in full quality without much in the way of glitches.
The applications that will be made possible by today’s mind-boggling speeds include possibilities that the average broadband internet user today would never have imagined. Video chat along with audio (popularized by companies like Skype) has improved in quality and stability. Real time gaming in virtual worlds is increasing in realism all the time, in direct correlation with what internet speeds will allow.
Digital professionals of all kinds are able to exchange large files via the internet in seconds that would have generally been sent on disc by conventional mail via the postal system. This has revolutionized collaboration and made real-time project cooperation possible in ways that closely mimic working together in person.
How fast will Broadband Internet Connection Speeds Go in the Future?
While it may be difficult to predict with certainty just how fast the internet speeds of the future will be, the recent past and present state of the industry is a good indication that they will continue to increase exponentially. In fact, physicists are currently debating the potential reality that data transfers may one day exceed the speed of light, a concept referred to as Superluminal or Faster Than Light (FTL) communications.
Data Faster Than the Speed of Light: The Future Fiber Optic World
What if information could literally travel anywhere in the world at a rate actually faster than the speed of light? The scientific community is poised to make this dream a reality in the near future using fiber optic cabling technology.
Your local internet service provider or network cabling company may already offer fiber optics to connect you to the internet, and the cabling may also be used for telephone systems and other applications. However, the transfer rates are limited in the current technology connected to the cables.
Current Fiber Optic Technology Transmits Data at Speed of Light
Today, the technology used for fiber optic data transmission permits data communication at the speed of light. Many advantages are thus enjoyed by end users including blazingly fast access to the internet and telecommunications with higher quality and stability, and shorter audio/video delay (latency). While traditional copper wire uses electrons to transmit information, fiber optic cabling uses light. Light is impervious to many typical physical limitations of matter, one of which is signal degradation.
Over a long copper wire cable, the amplitude (measured by decibels, or dB) of the electronic signal gradually attenuates, reducing in strength. The copper wiring’s electrical properties also cause the signal to become corrupted to some degree. Electrical interference can also cause data inaccuracy or complete loss of signal. Eventually, the signal is no longer usable if the cable is too long. Fiber optic cabling does not suffer as greatly from these issues restrictions and can carry signals over much longer distances with a far reduced loss of signal strength and greater accuracy.
Going Beyond the Speed of Light
The speed of light can actually be exceeded, according to research at Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL). A team of researchers there found success in not only slowing down the speed of light, but also in demonstrating that light can indeed travel faster than the established speed of light (300 million meters per second in a vacuum).
While information can travel at and above the speed of light in fiber optic cabling, the technology that routes, processes and stores that information still has some catching up to do. That is where slowing down the speed of light becomes a relevant endeavor. In order for light to be processed, it must be slowed down by the devices sending and receiving it. Conversion of optical data into electrical signals is a facet of the process still in improvement.
The Future of Fiber Optics
The future of optical technology is open-ended and is a bright light. With the continuous advancements in this field, the world could eventually be blanketed with lightning fast data communication, enabling new types of applications never previously envisioned. It will also enhance and virtually remove perceptible delays in the most advanced applications currently in use today.
Because fiber optic cabling has a greater capacity for carrying information, is not susceptible to electrical interference, and does not require as many amplifiers, it is superior to traditional copper cabling. In the coming years, we will see more applications and advancements in fiber optics, and it will most likely usurp copper wiring for most applications.
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