Plastic Fiber Could Make Optical Networking a DIY Project

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.

100 MBPS fiber??

[bbroerman]

Honestly, unless it becomes a lot cheaper than Cat-5 UTP, I think it's going to be a non-starter. Now, if it was 100 GBPS, that would be a different story...

Re:So...

[blhack]

What's the benefit of 100mbps plasti-fiber over gigabit cat-6?

With fiber, you have at most 2 wires to deal with per connection....1 for transmit, and one for receive. With cat 6e you have to deal with 8, and they are a pain in the ass to use.

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.

Re:MOD Parent up please

[paanta]

Not that I think fiber isn't the future, but copper prices don't seem to have much to do with it. For in-home wiring, cable runs are short enough that the amount of copper involved is pretty frickin' small, especially compared to the copper in your electric car. Plus, with the housing market cooling off, copper prices are holding fairly steady. If it were really going to be in such hot demand, wouldn't speculators have already driven the price through the roof?

Re:Yet.. another petrol product..

[DrSkwid]

My addition to the plastic part is how long does it take to biodegrade ? We should be reducing our use of 10,000 year lifespan plastic not increasing it.

> 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 isn't so present proof let alone future :

user warning: Got error 122 from storage engine query: SELECT COUNT(*) AS count, d.tid, d.name, d.vid FROM wn_term_data d INNER JOIN wn_term_node n ON d.tid = n.tid WHERE d.vid IN (2) GROUP BY d.tid, d.name, d.vid ORDER BY count DESC LIMIT 0, 12 in /home/wn/includes/database.mysql.inc on line 172.

Re:I see an inconsistency

[Fatal67]

Shouldn't be looking in to the end of a fiber anyway. But if put it in a persons home, you have to make sure this can't happen. Someone will do it.

When you unplug the end of the cable you are going to look in to, the loss of light will put the transceiver in to pulse mode. It'll go in to a 'find' mode.
The laser is probably a class 1 to begin with. (Ciscos' CWDM gbics are class 1)

Class 1 lasers are low-power lasers which do not normally pose a hazard.
Class 2 lasers are low-power visible lasers or laser systems that cannot cause eye damage unless they are viewed directly for an extended period of time.
Class 3 lasers are medium-power lasers and laser systems capable of causing eye damage with short duration exposures to the direct or specularly reflected beam. They are subdivided into two subclasses.
          Class 3a lasers normally do not present a hazard if viewed momentarily with an unaided eye, but may present a hazard if viewed using collecting optics.
          Class 3b lasers can present a hazard if viewed directly. This includes intrabeam viewing of specular reflections.
Class 4 denotes high-power lasers and laser systems that may cause severe eye injury with short duration exposure to the direct or reflected beam. They may also cause severe skin damage and present a fire hazard.

http://web.princeton.edu/sites/ehs/healthsafetyguide/E3.htm/ [princeton.edu]

Re:MOD Parent up please

[Kythe]

Hmmm...for in-home runs, the cost of fiber isn't all that outlandish already. 25 meters of singlemode, duplex fiber terminated both ends by LC connectors starts at about $1/meter. True, that's about three times the price of bulk Cat5e, but it's still not exclusively the plaything of millionaires.

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. You'll spend over $500 for one link, and that cost isn't poured into the fiber itself.