The decision drivers supporting a fiber solution tend to be: bandwidth, throughput, latency (speed), and cost.
Bandwidth and throughput are closely related. Bandwidth is the capability of a communication system to transfer data while throughput is the actual transfer that is experienced. Ideally, a communication network’s throughput would match its bandwidth. With copper and coaxial installations, the two are often different with throughput being less than bandwidth. However, with fiber solutions, the throughput more closely matches the bandwidth of the system. Therefore, fiber is more reliable than other communication options.
Latency is another critical driver for fiber solutions. In a fiber delivery system, latency is the time required to get information from the sender to the receiver. Therefore, it can be thought of as the “speed” achieved sending information from point A to point B. As technology improved, we went from copper (below 10 Mbs) to coaxial cable (10 – 100 Mbs) to fiber (1 Gbs or greater). Here again, the latency (speed) performance of a fiber solution shines brightly against alternative choices.
Another reason for selecting fiber is the cost. Fiber infrastructure is cheaper to purchase and install in comparison to copper. Moreover, the higher bandwidth of a fiber solution allows the end user to transmit more data over a smaller diameter “pipe”. This results in lower operating costs to the end user of the system.