If your business seeks high-performance data networking, then fiber optic cables were designed to accommodate you.
Speed and reliability are two essential components of any fast-paced business. Luckily, that’s exactly what you get with fiber-optic internet.
What is fiber optics?
Put simply, they’re the use of thin flexible fibers of glass or other transparent solids to transmit telecommunications signals. Fiber optics are widely considered to be the fastest internet options available, outpacing WiFi and other popular options.
It takes a lot of skill, experience, and sweat to make a fiber optic installation successful, which is why we took the time to write up this blog post going over two things:
- What you need to look for in a fiber optic installation company.
- What to look for on a fiber-optic network
Let’s get into it.
Fiber Optic Installers: What To Look For?
Fiber Optic Engineers With Experience
An experienced fiber optic contractor will gauge multiple factors to determine what your premises need to have the most reliable fiber-optic network. It takes experience to understand the unique needs of a business.
As fiber optic installers, we spend a great deal of time getting educated on the ins and outs of our work, but that only takes us so far. We also need to have experience working on different types of installs to understand how to properly map out an IT plan.
Fiber Optic Engineering Requires Customization
Customization is not only important for what you may need in your facility, but for what you already have. The first part of a customized IT plan is auditing your facility to answer those two questions. What do you already have and what do you need?
Works In Your Industry
It takes more than technology to achieve the best results with fiber optic installation. It’s not about the ax, it’s about the person wielding it. In this case, you want someone who has hands-on experience installing fiber optic cabling in your industry.
Why is that important?
Because every industry serves a unique purpose, meaning it has unique needs.
Support
Look, nobody is as confident in their network installation abilities as us, but even we can admit that sometimes things happen. If you’re newly installed fiber optic cables get damaged, you need to have a support team on speed dial that can repair all damages.
Cables get smashed, cut, or damaged accidentally, especially in fast-moving offices where technology comes in and out.
Experienced teams are able to quickly diagnose issues and make fiber optic restoration look easy thanks to a variety of tools like optical time domain reflectometers, fiber optic cutters/strippers, and fusion splicers.
You should have 100% trust that the fiber engineer that performed your network installation can come back at your request and perform fiber optic cable repair when needed.
Safety
Before you can install fiber optic, you have to determine if the area is clean enough to make a safe installation. Factors to keep in mind are air quality, surface soils, groundwater, and biological remains. Trained installers lower your risk of an accident or mistake that costs you later on.
Also learn more about Fiber Optic Installation Requirements and Best Practices
Fiber Optic Installation: What To Look For In Your Network?
Fiberoptics Means Reliability
Internet is intertwined in our personal and business lives. It’s not going anywhere, which means if you want to stay ahead of the competition, you need it at all times. One key benefit of fiber-optic internet is that it’s designed to have less interference with its signals compared to wireless networks.
The result is you don’t have to worry about weather changes affecting your network. No more worrying about heavy rains and winds knocking out the internet.
How is this possible?
Weather like rain, cold, and heat affects electrical signals but doesn’t have the same effect on fiber optics because fiber optics send light beams down the thin strand of glass rather than electrical signals.
If you want your fiber optic cables to last longer, ask your installer about using tube cables to prolong their lifespan.
Weather isn’t the only factor when it comes to reliability.
Copper networks create electrical signals as we mentioned. This creates a field of interference around the cables that can bleed into each other. Thus, slowing down or even completely stopping the message transmission.
This is called crosstalk.
“When a signal transmitted from one copper cable interferes with the transmission on another pair.”
The transmissions of fiber optics don’t generate any EMI (electromagnetic interference) making fiber optics more reliable.
Fiber Optic Telecommunications Provide Security
Fiber optic is considered the most secure means of communication for businesses because the glass tubes make interception of transmissions nearly impossible.
Range
Looking for long-distance communication? Then fiber optic is your weapon of choice. Whether it’s a college campus, warehouse, or office building, fiber optics is able to operate at incredible speeds across an entire network. Fiber optic cables can carry signals up to 25 miles.
Speed
Once again, fiber optic cabling beats copper cabling, this time in the speed department. Fiber optic connectivity offers internet speeds that range up to 100 Gbps. Copper-based transmissions max out at 40 Gbps.
Faster speeds mean fewer internet slowdowns when network demand is higher. Fiber optic networks offer better voice quality during VoIP, faster data transfers, and increased download speeds.
Final Thoughts
If your business seeks high-performance data networking, then fiber optic cables were designed to accommodate you. It can be easy to get lost in the sea of options, data, and installation methods when it comes to fiber optic telecommunications.
For this reason, it’s important you work with an installer who knows how to make sense of everything and put it all together into one seamless fiber-optic network that works for your organization.
