Fiber Optic Internet is a relatively new technology that is rapidly evolving and is increasingly used when it comes to design network installations in the home or small business. While fiber connections aren’t widely available yet, the potential network speed and reliability make it a strong competitor.
If you’re considering moving to fiber-optic internet but aren’t sure what to expect from the installation this is an article for you.
Since the system is fundamentally different from other internet networks, there will be a few new pieces of equipment you’ll need to set up a fiber-optic connection.
First, you’ll need fiber-optic cable. You need to choose a service provider that will bring you fiber to your home or company. When this is complete you need to centralize nodes using OLT
- to perform conversion between the electrical signals used by the service provider’s equipment and the fiber optic signals used by the passive optical network.
- to coordinate the multiplexing between the conversion devices on the other end of that network (called either optical network terminals or optical network units).
Then if you are company or bigger home you need splitter to provide fiber optic cable to all office / room. You have the option to use one ONT and then from there use UTP cables to connect all devices, but if the length is more than 100m, this is not a good idea.
Then in every floor/home you need ONT – Optical Network Terminal
Best practice is to do as on the picture below.
Fiber-optic internet is one of the fastest connection types available. Even if the installing a fiber-optic network can be fairly painfull it is definitely worth the effort. If you need high speeds, low latency, and an overall reliable connection this is best choice for you.
If you use UTP cables to connect devices with Router / Switch you need to take care of the length of cable. In the table below you can see Data Rate of cable by categories and Max Length.
