According to the TV spots you've probably seen, FiOS is "the most advanced fiber optic network straight to your home." The Verizon tech, and the precocious little boy who mimics him, also spout something about "your 1310, your 1490 and the 1550," "plus 20 dB hot," and something that sounds like "true quam."

So...you got all that? What do you mean, not really?

If you're not one of the people who starts drooling at the mere mention of FiOS, or gnashing your teeth because you don't have it already, it just might be because you haven't gotten around to translating that TV spot with your Techie-English dictionary yet. Hey, I understand. (By the way, if you are drooling or gnashing your teeth, check out this article on what the holdup is.)

Before hearing about FiOS, you may have figured fiber optics had something to do with long-distance phone service and/or those holiday trees that light up by themselves like magic. While fiber optics do have a variety of uses, from industrial and military applications to medical procedures like endoscopy, some of the most widespread, practical benefits are its unrivaled speed and bandwidth capabilities in broadband communication. To really understand why FiOS is so much better than your standard Internet and cable services, though, it helps to take a peek at how fiber optics work.

Fiber optics: fat pipe that's hair-thin

Fiber optics are thin strands of very pure glass used to transmit information via pulses of laser light. An optical fiber consists of a glass core, surrounded by a layer of different glass called cladding, and an outer layer of protective coating called a jacket. The glass in the core is so clear, impurities are measured in parts per billion, yet the entire fiber is about the same diameter as a human hair.

Light travels through the fiber according to a principle called total internal reflection. The cladding layer has a lower refractive index than the core, so the light is constantly being reflected back into the core, where it continues along its path. Picture a tube with a mirrored coating on the inside -- if you were to shine a flashlight into one end of it, someone standing on the other end would be able to see that light, even if the tube were not perfectly straight. This is basically the same idea behind fiber optics (except you'd be turning the flashlight on and off a few million times per second, which would definitely give you sore thumbs.)

The characteristics of light make fiber optics the ideal medium for carrying digital information rapidly over long distances. FiOS transmits light through the fiber at three different wavelengths, which are measured in nanometers: 1310 nm, 1490 nm and 1550 nm. Each wavelength is used for a different type of information -- outbound data, inbound data and TV channels, respectively. (Telephone, pay per view, video on demand and the FiOS Interactive Media Guide all use the same wavelengths as FiOS Internet service.)

Read Pt. 2...

Posted by Jim 2.0 | tagged: fiber, QAM, bandwidth, IMG, speed, internet, VoD, FiOS, HD, TV