copper vs fiber
Copper vs Fiber Some advantages of Copper Cabling are Power over Ethernet this gives you the ability to power phones, surveillance cameras, Wireless Access Points, and many other devices right through the networking cable itself. That means that you don’t have to schedule an electrician in to run power to your surveillance cameras to power them. Another advantage is the ability to have an emergency power supply that will continue powering mission critical devices even if your electricity goes out. Less expensive electronics if you are going to take fiber to the workspace, realize that most PC’s come with copper. (Staff, 2014) Copper is much more flexible to work with it. In the current market it is slowly becoming more cost effective to use fiber as the price of copper is steadily on the rise. Some Advantages of Fiber Cabling are Electromagnetic Interference the interference in signal transmission or reception caused by the radiation of electrical and magnetic fields. Optical Fiber is immune to electromagnetic energy because it is a dielectric (not able to conduct electric current). Copper cabling, if not installed properly is vulnerable to the effects of EMI, such as undesirable responses, degradation, or complete system failure. High Bandwidth — Fiber has a higher bandwidth than copper. Example: Category 6A Cable is classified by the Telecommunications Industry Association (TIA) to handle a bandwidth up to 600 MHz over 100 meters, which theoretically, could carry around 18,000 calls at the same time. Multimode Fiber, on the other hand, would have a bandwidth of over 1000 MHz which could carry almost 31,000 simultaneous calls. (Staff, 2014) Less Expensive — fiber cable is actually less expensive than copper, but don’t forget the expensive electronics that it requires. Lightweight — An optical cable weighs less than a comparable copper wire cable. Non-flammable — Fiber is a dielectric, which means that there isn’t any electrical current that