Advantages and disadvantages of optical fiber

Advantages:

There are some advantages of optical fiber which are given below.

• The optical fiber are lighter and smaller.
• Resistances to high temperature.
• The optical fiber cables are cheaper to transport and easier to install than metal cables.
• The optical fibers and fiber cables are very strong and flexible.
• The optical fibers are so slender that they do not break when wrapped around curves of only a few centimeter radius.
• One of the most important advantage of fibers is that they can carry large amount of information in either digital or analog form.
• Optical fiber is well protected from external interference.
• The optical fibers have greater information carrying capacities than metallic conductors.
• Radar and other signals cannot introduce any interference in the fiber.
• It has greater bandwidth.

Disadvantages:

There are some disadvantages of optical fiber which are given below.

• It is need more expansive transmitter and receiver equipments.
• At higher optical powers, fiber is more prone to fiber flux, so optical fiber may get damaged.More difficult and expensive to splice then wires.
• It is a high investment cost or installation is costly.
• It cannot carry electrical power to operate terminal devices.