(Cont'd from Pt. 1)

Fiber vs. cable: no contest

Besides carrying data at nearly the speed of light, fiber has other advantages over decades-old coaxial cables:

• Less signal loss -- data sent through coaxial cable can suffer significant signal loss (attenuation) after just a few hundred meters. Pulses of light sent through fiber, however, can travel over 100 km without a significant degradation of the signal. In fact, FiOS installers sometimes have to attenuate the signal coming into a subscriber's home by a few decibels (dB) because it actually can be a bit too strong for the equipment. (The Verizon guy's comment, "So clean, it's plus 20 dB hot," is referring to the strong signal.)


• Fiber is thin -- so thin, in fact, that hundreds of them can be bundled into a single cable that's about the same thickness as the ones you see strung between utility poles. This way, each FiOS household gets its own dedicated fiber, rather than splicing into the same coaxial cable your whole neighborhood is using.


• Light, not electricity -- since fiber doesn't conduct electricity, it's immune to electromagnetic interference from nearby cables and electrical wiring, and is much less susceptible to water damage and bad weather. The result: crystal-clear TV reception, phone conversations and less computer error messages.


• More bandwidth -- fiber has much higher bandwidth potential ("fatter pipe") than cable.

That last one is particularly important, as the explosion of demand for broadband services in just the past few years is stretching many cable-based networks almost to their breaking points. Just look at the rise of video sharing and social networking sites, some of which now serve up well over 100 million videos a day -- and it doesn't look like folks are going to stop sending around goofy video clips any time soon.

In fact, as more and more families begin to integrate their Internet, TV and multimedia into one seamless experience, and enjoy more HD content than ever before, future bandwidth will be critical. Instead of scrambling to keep up with today's broadband demands using yesterday's cable technology, FiOS will be able to provide more than enough bandwidth for decades to come.

Hey, what about that "quam" thing?

Oh yeah, almost forgot. QAM stands for quadrature amplitude modulation, which is the method FiOS uses to encode and transmit its signal. But if you, like some folks online, want to start using "true QAM" as a slang term for "unbelievably awesome," that's fine, too.

SEE ALSO:

What's the Holdup?
Why FiOS may not be in your area just yet

FiOS TV: The Light Fantastic
Sound & Vision Magazine

FiOS Fiber vs. Cable's Fiber
AP Article Cuts through Confusing Cable Ads

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