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The Secret Life Of An (OC-1) – Optical Carrier 1

Around 1840, two Frenchmen in Paris shone a light at the source of a flowing column of water, poured from a container into a bucket. They noticed that, if the light was pointed into the column at a certain angle, it carried all the way down the tube of water. The first (OC-1) – Optical Carrier 1 was born.

This principle has revolutionized our world, in terms of telecommunications and data transmission. How? Well, what the Frenchmen discovered was the principle of Total Internal Reflection, and that principle is now used in the millions of miles of fiber optic cables that zig-zag round our world.

To explain how a fiber optic cable – the most common form of optical carrier – works, then imagine you are standing at one end of a long tunnel, and your friend is standing at the other. You can send him mores signals with your flashlight. You have the flashlight so you are the transmitter. He has a pencil and paper so he is the receiver. But what if there is a bend in the tunnel? He can’t see you. However, imagine if the tunnel was coated with mirrors – get the picture? The tunnel is now the carrier.

An optical carrier such as a fiber optic cable is not coated with mirrors, however. Like the water, the glass surface reflects light totally if it is shone in at a certain angle – for glass, for example, it must be over 38 degrees. Nowadays, in a typical fiber optic network, the light source is provided by a laser, producing a highly controlled beam of light, with a digital receiver at the other end converting the modulated beam into an electrical pulse.

Optical fibers are long strands of extremely pure, hair-thin refined glass (or sometimes plastic). These are then clad in a protective coating to prevent light escaping into a neighboring fiber, then coated in a buffer to protect it from the elements, then bundled together with hundreds of other fibers in a plastic jacket.

Optical carriers are used to transmit internet data, cable television signals, and telephone signals. Over long-distances (and, recently, even over short distances) optical fiber is cheaper than copper wire, and far superior to it in terms of bandwidth: they are thinner than copper wires, so more fibers than wires can fit into a given cable, interference: which wires are susceptible to from lightning, power lines, railtracks, and ‘cross-talk’ from other wires, attenuation: losing energy to the environment.

Optical fiber is also cheaper than copper wire, and is also more environmentally-friendly: traditional, wire-based transmission requires a signal repeater every two-thirds of a mile or so. Optical carriers may go over 60 miles with no need to resend the signal. This means a significant reduction in energy and equipment.

Optical carriers are constantly in development, and technology, reliability and coverage is increasing every day. With cheap, limitless bandwidth with no loss over distances, possibilities are endless: soon you could be seeing a three-dimensional virtual reality hologram of your favorite entertainer in your very own living room – a long way from a candle and a bucket.