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Posts Tagged ‘fiber optics’

The Immanent Bandwidth Cap Wars

February 4th, 2010

As internet service providers offer faster speeds, a new area of competition has begun. At first, there was a race to provide internet service at the fastest possible speed. Of late however the speed race has outpaced the capabilities of users’ hardware. This has created a new factor for internet service provider. The bandwidth cap is fast becoming the new battlefields over which companies must compete.

There are cost limitations on monthly bandwidth. While customers may sometimes feel that there is a big business conspiracy preventing them from getting the bandwidth they want at a comfortable cost, there are massive hardware costs involved in getting data from the internet to your computer at blinding speeds. On the bright side, though, prices are typically determined by the cost a customer is willing to spend on a product. Currently, the costs being charged by most internet service providers seem to be acceptable. However, one change in user behavior looms on the horizon that inevitability threatens to destroy the present comfortable footing on which service providers design their business models. The normal consumer will eventually want to watch on-demand high definition TV content on their computers. This will be the death knell of the cable television station.

While cable companies certianly have an interest in preventing this by limiting monthly bandwidth, they will be unable to force this price control on the market forever. Wireless internet will soon be available all over major population centers at blinding speeds. This will make it nearly impossible for this media transition to be prevented by any commercial means.

This is wonderful news for the consumer. As companies begin to boast that they provide more bandwidth for your money, these caps will increase very quickly due to market pressure. Companies that offer hardware to internet service providers will have to lower their prices in turn. This is of course simply how the market works.

With all of the various methods of transferring data, there needs to be a huge focus on quality. For the consumer that plans to view high quality content, this will represent a dramatic improvement on the current online experience. High quality content inevitably means higher bandwidth demands.

Bandwidth limits will also affecthave an impact on the quality of content made. For example, most current media files need to be compressed to meet bandwidth limits. If it’s possible to transfer more data faster, these limitations would disappear. This may result in new advancements in music storage software. Why not increase the size of music files if they can be transferred very quickly? It’s the same for video files and any other content that people may attempt to share online. If providers can deliver bigger files, then movie files should be available in better quality. Over time this will allow for massive growth in the quality of audio and video files.

Online games will benefit from this boom too. As data transfer rates explode, you can count on game developers to take full advantage of the newly available bandwidth. Online games may never require as much bandwidth as streaming video or music, but it would be a mistake to ignore the demands of the online gaming market.

There is an exciting future for online content. While many complain about the current bandwidth caps, the future holds a race between providers to deliver the increased bandwidth at lower costs. In the long run, this will mean great things for the consumers of high quality online content.

Geek Choice
knows that consumers enjoy high quality media. As a nationwide computer repair company, we work very hard to help people enjoy the experience with their PCs.

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Fiber Optics

October 3rd, 2009

Fiber optic cables are a common factor in cable television industry. Internet and also some other communications mediums. Fiber optics will carry digital information over long distances through a strand of optical thin glass. Mostly used in communication mediums due to the availability of a higher bandwith, these fiber optics will carry the light far longer than many other forms of electrical signal carriers.

optic fiber

Because of the sudden improvements in fiber optics these higher end signal carriers have replaced the conventional core type electrical wires in many industries. How it works is fiber optics are long, thin strands of pure thin glass that are arranged in bundles referred to as optical cables that are used to transmit light signals over long distances. Consisting of three layers, the inner core will carry the light from the sender to the receiver, while the next level of layer reflects the light back on to the core to make sure none is lost and finally an outer layer will protect the light signal from environment.

optical fiber

Due to its smooth transition, fiber optics are recommended for longer distant signal transmission. With minimum number of amplifiers these fiber optics calbles can carry the amount of data carried in many electrical wires. When fiber cables run alongside each other for long distances, they don’t experience crosstalk unlike some types of electrical transmission lines. Several miles of optical cable could be cheaper than copper wire saving your provider and you money. Fiber optics will result in clearer and more quality reception unlike the other types of mediums due to its less interferences. Lower power transmitters can be used instead of high voltage electrical transmitters due to less power loss in fiber optics.

fiber optics

Fiber optics is most often suited for carrying digital information which is why most industries such as telecommunications and computer networks are frequent users of it. Due to the flexibility of fiber optics usages today it is often seen in almost any industry.

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