Knowledge

New Fiber Optic Cable Application In 5G

The next generation of wireless tech, 5G, promises a frictionless potential: We will be able to do anything we do on our phones much, much faster, and more apparatus can come online without even slowing down the works. Self-driving cars, smart meters that track power usage, and health-monitoring devices may all take a big jump from childhood to adolescence. To get there, big telecoms need to harness underused parts of the spectrum. But there is another crucial part inherent in this system: lowly cable. Huge quantities of new transmitters will be needed to relay all of that data to your phone, and lots of these transmitters will still connect to the internet through fiber-optic cable–glass as thin as strands of hair carrying pulses of light.

To make it all work, Thus there is a huge demand for the new fiber optic cable that holds twice as many fiber pairs; two strands, uplink, and one for the downlink-as the old cable.

In every cable are the glass fibers, which are unspooled with a device known as a payoff system. In the cable factory, these machines are enormous –6 feet tall, 25 feet long, and 4 ft wide. Color coding allows technicians to know which components to splice when linking two wires. When displayed on giant bobbins in the cable factory, the fibers produce an unintentional artist’s palette of yellow, coral, aqua, forest green, and gray. The glass fibers are then laced through weather-resistant buffer tubes and swaddled in strong synthetic aramid yarn to safeguard the inner workings. The final step of production entails applying a dark sheath made from durable polyethylene. A finished fiber-optic cable can be up to 30,000 feet or more than 5 miles.

These wires could be draped along utility poles or concealed in shallow trenches beneath city streets out on earth. Enormous spans of cable carry the net under the oceans between continents. In those areas, mostly hidden, they may one day connect your 5G-enabled apparatus and beam you into the future. 5G Is Coming, and It will be fortified with optical fiber, countless new wireless transmitters will relay all that data to your phone, and many will connect to the internet through endless miles of new fiber-optic cable.