On Wed, Jul 28, 2004 at 04:52:28PM -0600, Michael L Torrie wrote:
1. As Justin pointed out, the only limit in the foreseeable future on the bandwidth of fiber is the hardware on each end.
I think there are theoretical limits on the fibre's material too. IE glass vs plastic. It's not a perfect medium, but yes it is more capable than wireless.
As far as that goes, some interesting questions are: What is the attenuation for various kinds of optical material; what about over various gradients of quality tolerance? What is the background level? Although fiber doesn't semaphor with electrical potential difference, it does transmit electromagnetic signals which are a clever combination of electric and magnetic fields invented by James Maxwell. (Is Danelle still around here somewhere :-) What effect does ambient light have on signal clarity (yes, even light from solar activity)? What is the smallest signal strength of optical intensity that is reliable?
Go have a chat with Dr. Selfridge over the Electrical Engineering Dept. He's the optics guy over there and probably can tell you the answer to all those questions.
Bryan
____________________
BYU Unix Users Group http://uug.byu.edu/ ___________________________________________________________________
List Info: http://uug.byu.edu/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/uug-list
