Optical Fiber Local Area Networks

Abstract

Abstract Communication between computers is an essential part of modern living and the telecommunication industry is one of world's fastest growing. There is an increasing demand for higher bandwidth, almost doubling the data rate every year. This has reached a point where a single transmission medium such as twisted pair or coaxial cable is not capable of transmitting the load. Thus, for a reliable and high‐speed data transfer, computers are connected through a network of point‐to‐point communication links. These types of networks usually referred to as local area network or LAN. The main purpose of a LAN is to share resources such as files, printers, programs, databases, etc; among the nodes in the network. The initial designs were intended for communication between computers at short distances; however, the length of the links has grown from a few meters to a few kilometers. If computers are connected via optical fiber links, the LAN is referred to as optical fiber LAN. Since the early 1970s optical fibers have been utilized as transmission media in long and short distance communication links. The capacity of optical fibers has increased from several Mbit/sec per km to about 300 Gbit/sec per km; and could reach thousands of Gbit/sec in the near future. Other properties like small size, lightweight, and immunity to electromagnetic interference noise also provide a crucial advantage for optical fibers over other mediums. Some common types of Optical LANs are FDDI, optical Ethernet at various speeds, Fibre Channel and ATM LAN emulation.