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Plastic Fiber Could Make Optical Networking a DIY Project
Posted by
timothy
on Wed Jan 09, 2008 04:13 PM
from the through-a-not-glass-darkly dept.
from the through-a-not-glass-darkly dept.
An anonymous reader writes "A new European project using plastic fiber and off-the-shelf components could make optical networking so cheap and simple that installation could be a DIY job for even a non-technical person. The object of EU-funded POF-ALL project is to find a technical solution to the rising cost of taking optical fiber right into the home." A mere "few hundred metres" of 100mbps (since plastic is thus far dimmer than glass) would suffice to wire any home I'm likely to occupy.
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Submission: Plastic fibre slashes optical network costs by Anonymous Coward
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So... (Score:4, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re:So... (Score:5, Informative)
Copper is much more expensive than plastic, and 8-wire CAT5 cabling is a lot harder to run than a plastic filament, to boot.
Parent
MOD Parent up please (Score:5, Interesting)
Finally, copper does not go the long distances that Fiber does. I suspect that we will see a lot of uses for these in running from the green box to the home. In fact, I think that the delivery companies will have multiple cables to the home. Basically, dark fiber. It will enable some interesting services.
Parent
Re:MOD Parent up please (Score:4, Insightful)
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
The thing about this article that I think misses the point somewhat is that it's the stuff you connect to the ends of fiber that costs so darned much. Case in point: HDMI extenders that use fiber as the medium.
Re:mod THIS parent up please (Score:3)
You plug in a usb or firewire or CAT-x or RS-xxx with no problems at all but there AREN'T any optical interfaces built into any computers yet that _I_ know of. The only consumer-level optics I've seen so far are in audio (and higher-end stuff at that) and if you look at the optical/CAT-x converters you'll have quite a heart attack at the prices.
Re:MOD Parent up please (Score:4, Informative)
Parent
Re:MOD Parent up please (Score:4, Interesting)
The simple fact is that plastic is about to become VERY VERY expensive. China is buying the petroleum that is used to make it as well as working with all countries that have oil reserves to acquire full access to the oil. The simple fact is that there is a limited amount of oil and China is about to use 1000x more than what it currently does.
Parent
Re:MOD Parent up please (Score:5, Informative)
Also, we've got quite a bit of recyclable plastic sitting in landfills. More than we could ever possibly need. Likewise, there are a few new "plastic" materials on the horizon that can economically be produced from plants.
Plastic was made out of plants, hemp was a good feed stock, before oil was used to make it. Which is part of the reason hemp was made illegal. In the mid 1930s, before the Marijuana Tax Act [wikipedia.org] of 1937 basically made hemp illegal, DuPont was granted patents on making plastic from oil.
FalconParent
copper (Score:3, Interesting)
our best place to obtain copper may be in the dumps as well as overhead lines that were put in 40 years ago.
I didn't want to say anything about recycling, but you're right, dumps and all the copper cables already laid down may be a better source.
We do have SHITLOADS of coal that can be changed into feedstock for plastics.
A better source of fee stock for plastic may be hemp [wikipedia.org] with bioplastics [wikipedia.org] being renewable. My question then is would bioplastics be good for fiber optics.
Falcon
Copper is much more expensive than plastic (Score:4, Interesting)
That may be true now but currently plastic is a petrochemical product. As oil prices rise so will the prices of plastic fibers. Copper will rise as well but at least in the US copper can be locally [unr.edu] mined thus reducing transportation costs.
FalconParent
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
once W. is gone and the tax cuts for ethanol is rolled out (please), then realism will take hold of corn, and we will see corn being used in plastics.
Even with the massive subsidies corn gets corn prices will still go up. A better feed stock for plastic is hemp [hempplastic.com]. But how well will Bioplastics [wikipedia.org] work for fiber?
Falcon
Re:So... (Score:5, Interesting)
Lightning hit my house (or very close to it) last year, and took out at least the ethernet port on every computer I had that was Cat5 connected at the time. Took out a few USB ports, and sent my router to the great network in the sky also.
Plastic fiber wouldn't have that problem (until someone marries the plastic fiber with the Power over Ethernet spec).
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
I would expect that the characteristics of the electrical/optical transceivers and modulation would set the speed, and the loss in the cable per unit length would limit how long it could be without some sort of repeaters.
Re: (Score:2)
I would expect that the characteristics of the electrical/optical transceivers and modulation would set the speed, and the loss in the cable per unit length would limit how long it could be without some sort of repeaters.
Exactlty, since brightness is a measure of amplitude. The distance that could be travelled will utlimately depend on the initial brightness and the absorption by the cable. One advantage of optical over electrical,
Re: (Score:2)
Re:So... (Score:4, Informative)
If that doesn't make sense, let me explain it this way: light doesn't travel straight down a fiber optic cable. Instead, it bounces back and forth down the cable, first hitting the cladding at one side and then hitting the cladding at the other. That's why the light can go around curves; its not traveling straight, its bouncing back and forth off the walls. The index of refraction for the cladding material is much higher than the index of refraction for the fiber, so the light obeys a principle called "total internal reflection" instead of the cladding absorbing it.
Some photons go pretty straight, rarely hitting the walls. Others bounce off the walls a lot. That changes distance they travel, which changes the time it takes them to reach the other end. With a thick plastic cable, the ones that bounce a lot will travel a much longer distance thus you have to space the changes in the signal further apart for them to be detectable at the other end of the cable.
Make more sense now?
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Probably thinking about RF channels, where SNR is a major factor in speed. With most fiber runs, it is not. Except for long-haul multi-kilometer runs, SNR is always pretty high.
The problem is optical and modal dispersion.
Optical dispersion is the same phenomenon as a prism - light travels different speeds depending on frequency. This causes pulses to spread. The higher the speed, the larger difference between min/max frequenc
Re:So... (Score:5, Insightful)
The problem with this, though, is that transmitting data isn't the only thing that Cat6 is used for. The fact that i have 8 little wires at my disposal running all over the building is a really great tool. I run POE (power over ethernet) on a few networking devices i have floating around. I also have used the White/Brown - Brown pair to run phones in a pinch (like when we end up having move gear in a room than we originally intended).
Fiber doesn't do this...at all. Not to mention the fact that you can't run a tone generator over fiber to find a cable inside of a bundle on the other side of the building.
Lets face it, folks, copper wiring isn't going anywhere anytime soon. Fiber is really great for long distance, high throughput links...but using it to wire everything in your house, or your office building is very very short-sighted.
Parent
Re:So... (Score:4, Interesting)
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Well, not with your remaining eye, certainly!
Re: (Score:2)
nobody was suggesting everyone was going to wire everything with plastic, dude
i've got a suggestion for you. Next time, before you flame me, read the article. Tell you what, even read the first SENTENCE of the article. Here, i'll paste it for you.
A new European project using plastic fiber and off-the-shelf components could make optical networking so cheap and simple that installation could be a DIY job for even a non-technical person.
Now what business would a "non-technical" person have doing any of the things that have traditionally required optical networking?
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
100 MBPS fiber?? (Score:2, Insightful)
The real cost (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
I see an inconsistency (Score:2, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Sources? (Score:2)
I was actually thinking of using these guys [fiberopticproducts.com] - , but I would be interested if anybody could come up with alternative recommendations. I poked around a little and I can't seem to find any consumer sources for plastic fiber. (you know, other than the bait and tackle shop)
What about Optical Audio? (Score:4, Interesting)
Because my favorite cable [flickr.com] is a TOS-LINK cable with a clear sheath, over the fiber optics.
(Yes, I am a nerd with a favorite kind of cable.)
Granted there it is a step up to go from a 6-foot cable to 100 feet, but it isn't that big of a deal. Bi-directional communication is another thing that would be needed to make a real network.
Amazon.com [amazon.com] has a bunch of 100-foot fiber optic cables, so I don't think that fiber itself is the issue, getting the network cards cheap enough is more of an issue, I think.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Newegg [newegg.com] had them, but they are out of stock.
They are called "RCA HD6HPL Optical Cable with Halo Connectors" for the 6-foot version, and the 3-foot version which apparently costs the same is the "RCA HD3HPL Optical Cable with Halo Connectors"
Another cool thing about this cable is that they connector isn't rectangular, which if you ha
Re: (Score:2)
Advantages over Ethernet? (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
if you think about twisted pair Ethernet, copper is expensive and conducts electricity, which is good if you use Power over Ethernet and bad if your installation gets hit by lightning.
Re: (Score:2)
The article (Score:4, Informative)
Wed, 01/09/2008 - 19:49 - Wire Services
A new European project using plastic fiber and off-the-shelf components could make optical networking so cheap and simple that installation could be a DIY job for even a non-technical person.
The object of EU-funded POF-ALL project is to find a technical solution to the rising cost of taking optical fiber right into the home.
The project partners decided to focus on the cabling inside buildings, which would typically account for 30% of the cost of laying an optical fibre from the exchange into the home. This last hundred metres or so is known as the 'edge' network.
"We realised that we could lower the cost of this edge installation by using a simpler technology," Alessandro Nocivelli, the founder and CEO of Luceat SpA, one of the partners in the project, said. "If we could employ a technology which is so simple to use that anyone can install it, that would relieve telecom companies of 30% of the cost of the access network, which means up to several billion euro if you consider the European Union as a whole."
Plastic fibres use harmless green or red light that is easily visible to the eye, as opposed to glass fibres which use infrared laser light that could potentially cause eye damage.
"I have a two-year-old child," says Nocivelli, "and I would never install a glass optical fibre in my own home, even though I have been working with glass optical fibers for many years."
Plastic fibres are also much thicker than glass fibres, a millimetre or more, and can be handled without special tools or techniques.
"You don't need to be trained to handle and install it. You just cut it with scissors, plug it in and it works. It's as easy as that," Nocivelli adds.
On the downside, plastic fibres absorb light more than glass, which limits their useful length to a few hundred metres.
They also have a lower data capacity than glass fibres, but that is not an issue for the cable that runs from a conventional glass fibre in the street into a house, or even for laying a network within a block of flats.
The partners have built a system that uses green light to transmit 100 megabits a second over a distance of 300 metres, which is the speed telecom companies hope to offer their customers five to ten years from now, and 50 times as fast as a typical adsl broadband connection.
Their second achievement is to transmit ten times faster still - one gigabit per second - over a 30m fibre, using red light.
By the end of the project in June 2008, they expect to have extended that to 100m.
"Then, of course, we will try to focus on longer distances," says Nocivelli. "We have already demonstrated that plastic fibre would be future-proof not only for the next ten years but for the next 30 years. With that speed in your home you could download a full DVD in thirty seconds."
The POF-ALL members have not had to develop any novel technologies, as they have built their systems using the latest off-the-shelf components and the ingenuity and skill of the ten academic and industrial partners.
Two products are already coming to the market. Luceat is commercialising an optical Ethernet switch (a router) using plastic fiber technology and the Fraunhofer Institute is looking for partners to market an integrated optical transceiver to work at one gigabit a second with plastic fiber.
Home and office networks could be rewired with plastic optical fibre so simply and cheaply it could be a do-it-yourself job.
"It's future-proof," confirms Nocivelli. You run at 100 Mbit/s today, 1 Gbit/s tomorrow and maybe 10 Gbit/s in the future."
A follow-up project, POF-PLUS, is intended to further develop optoelectronic components for plastic fiber and is awaiting a final decision on EU funding.
Parent
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
Maybe tomorrow... (Score:3, Funny)
Yes, and I think there is a world market for maybe five computers.
Also, 10 megabytes should be enough for anyone.
The Article (Score:3, Informative)
Plastic fibre slashes optical network costs
Wed, 01/09/2008 - 19:49 - Wire Services
A new European project using plastic fiber and off-the-shelf components could make optical networking so cheap and simple that installation could be a DIY job for even a non-technical person.
The object of EU-funded POF-ALL project is to find a technical solution to the rising cost of taking optical fiber right into the home.
The project partners decided to focus on the cabling inside buildings, which would typically account for 30% of the cost of laying an optical fibre from the exchange into the home. This last hundred metres or so is known as the 'edge' network.
"We realised that we could lower the cost of this edge installation by using a simpler technology," Alessandro Nocivelli, the founder and CEO of Luceat SpA, one of the partners in the project, said. "If we could employ a technology which is so simple to use that anyone can install it, that would relieve telecom companies of 30% of the cost of the access network, which means up to several billion euro if you consider the European Union as a whole."
Plastic fibres use harmless green or red light that is easily visible to the eye, as opposed to glass fibres which use infrared laser light that could potentially cause eye damage.
"I have a two-year-old child," says Nocivelli, "and I would never install a glass optical fibre in my own home, even though I have been working with glass optical fibers for many years."
Plastic fibres are also much thicker than glass fibres, a millimetre or more, and can be handled without special tools or techniques.
"You don't need to be trained to handle and install it. You just cut it with scissors, plug it in and it works. It's as easy as that," Nocivelli adds.
On the downside, plastic fibres absorb light more than glass, which limits their useful length to a few hundred metres.
They also have a lower data capacity than glass fibres, but that is not an issue for the cable that runs from a conventional glass fibre in the street into a house, or even for laying a network within a block of flats.
The partners have built a system that uses green light to transmit 100 megabits a second over a distance of 300 metres, which is the speed telecom companies hope to offer their customers five to ten years from now, and 50 times as fast as a typical adsl broadband connection.
Their second achievement is to transmit ten times faster still - one gigabit per second - over a 30m fibre, using red light.
By the end of the project in June 2008, they expect to have extended that to 100m.
"Then, of course, we will try to focus on longer distances," says Nocivelli. "We have already demonstrated that plastic fibre would be future-proof not only for the next ten years but for the next 30 years. With that speed in your home you could download a full DVD in thirty seconds."
The POF-ALL members have not had to develop any novel technologies, as they have built their systems using the latest off-the-shelf components and the ingenuity and skill of the ten academic and industrial partners.
Two products are already coming to the market. Luceat is commercialising an optical Ethernet switch (a router) using plastic fiber technology and the Fraunhofer Institute is looking for partners to market an integrated optical transceiver to work at one gigabit a second with plastic fiber.
Home and office networks could be rewired with plastic optical fibre so simply and cheaply it could be a do-it-yourself job.
"It's future-proof," confirms Nocivelli. You run at 100 Mbit/s today, 1 Gbit/s tomorrow and maybe 10 Gbit/s in the future."
A follow-up project, POF-PLUS, is intended to further develop optoelectronic components for plastic fiber and is awaiting a final decision on EU funding.
We've been using plastic fiber optics for data ... (Score:5, Interesting)
Just a few comments and a question. (Score:2)
As to the benefits over Cat5 I can see a few.
One is cost. Copper is getting more and more expensive plastic is cheap. Not only that but it should be lighter to ship and easier to install since it is smaller than CAT5.
Then you have safety. You don't have to worry about shorts and other issues with fiber. Not a huge problem but I can see where
Could? It already is! (Score:3, Informative)
It looks like they're solving problems, badly, that have already been solved. MS Windows and their broken "shortcuts" if anyone remembers? If I didn't think it was just plain ignorance, I would claim this was a well-disguised FUD piece.
Re:Best way to put ends on fiber? (Score:4, Informative)
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
> We have already demonstrated that plastic fibre would be future-proof not only for the next ten years but for the next 30 years. With that speed in your home you could download a full DVD in thirty seconds."
He's off his nuts, 30 years ago I was excited about 1Mb RAM replacing my 32k, I can *already* copy a DVD in 30s right now!
Seems like presscue.com i