What is fiber optic cable?
Fiber is the future of communications technology. Inside fiber optic cable are strands of optically pure glass, as thin as a human hair, that carry digital information over long distances. Digital signals are sent as pulses of light down the glass fibers, without interference or limitation. Your home is thus connected using the most advanced communications technology currently available: Fiber Optic Cable . This digital transport system is faster, clearer, more reliable, and will give you the bandwidth to access the digital communications services of the future, like digital TV services, and internet speeds up to 100 Mbps.
Why is fiber optic cable better than copper, or wireless transmission?
- SPEED: The fastest connection speed known to man - up into the gigabits.
- BANDWIDTH: large carrying capacity.
- DISTANCE: Signals can be transmitted further without needing to be "refreshed" or strengthened.
- LESS INTERFERENCE: Because it’s literally light being transmitted, there is no interference from electromagnetic noise such as radios, motors or other nearby cables. This means a clearer signal for you.
- MAINTENANCE: Fiber optic cables costs less to maintain, saving us all money.
What is the best way to use my Fiber-to-the-home connection?
The most important application currently available for your fiber is to use it for broadband internet. If you are serious about broadband, you should be subscribing to DSL from Direct Communications. Note, although we call it DSL to be consistent in our marketing and product packaging, with fiber you are directly connected to our switch network, without a modem, so it is in fact a more advanced technology than traditional DSL, which uses a modem over the copper lines.
Are all homes in our phone exchanges served by fiber?
Direct Communications has installed fiber-to-the-home in most new sub-divisions developed since 2006 in the Bear Lake area and in Rockland. If your home was built before then, you will not have fiber-to-the-home, but will have copper as the final connection to your home. Call our office at 208 548 2345 to check if your house has fiber-to-the-home.
However, you can be comforted by the knowledge that our network backbone is all fiber, leading out of the valley, so, really, you are all served by fiber.
What are the advantages of fiber optics? What changes would an average citizen see in their lives because of its use?
The most important factor is bandwidth. The fiber line running to your home from the main cable contains just a few strands of fiber, but those strands could carry all the information in Idaho, or in the USA for that matter. So, the capacity is huge—we have the ability to provide up to 100MB per second to each home. Fiber optics are the future of communications, and copper, or wireless transmission, will someday max out on the bandwidth people will require. In the future, your telephone company will also be your television provider, and all media will be delivered as internet data. This has already happened in some parts of the country—people are watching TV delivered over fiber as internet packets. The advantage of this of course is that the possibilities for different content and the boundaries for broadcasting will be unlimited. Every person could someday broadcast their own TV station out of their home—just call up Grandma and say—change the channel to IP address such-and-such, and watch your grandchild blow out her birthday candles.
Fiber optics carry an all-digital signal, and is better suited to today’s digital communication devices. Also, there is no interference from electric lines or magnetic fields like you experience with copper, so the signal is clearer, which will result in a better conversation. There is no resistance in the fiber optic cable like metal lines have, so the signal can travel infinitely, because it’s light, not an electron flow, so we can now serve customers who live far away from the central phone office with products like DSL, which is vital in the rural and remote areas. Fiber optics will open up whole new markets of people who previously were too far to pick up a DSL signal over copper.
Homeowners should be happy because having fiber to a home is a great modern feature that will increase the functionality and value of your home. Here in this remote valley of Utah, is a show-piece of the future.
Do I need a modem with Fiber-to-the-home internet service?
No, your fiber connection does not require a modem. With traditional DSL, phone and Internet service share the same wires. With fiber-to-the-home, you plug your computer network cable directly into our optical network device, mounted on the outside of your home, and are connected instantly and directly to our network. So, you do not have to purchase a modem.
Does my home need to be wired differently to take advantage of fiber-to-the-home?
With traditional DSL, phone and Internet service share the same telephone wires. With fiber-to-the-home, the two services require separate wires (one for phone, one for internet) going from the electronics box on the outside of your house, to your phone or computer jacks on the inside.
This modern home wiring requirement was made known to all homebuilders and developers prior to the construction of your house, and it is their responsibility to make sure that your home meets this standard. Most good builders will wire all modern homes with this standard modern network requirement, even if it’s not in an area using fiber. Others are cheap, and take short cuts. If your builder failed to properly prepare your home for a modern broadband connection, your phone service will still work, but it will require a little bit of extra labor by a trained technician to take full advantage of your fiber connection and properly use it for broadband internet access.
One easy way to determine if your home is wired correctly is to look at the phone jacks. If the wall plates have two jacks in them, then your home is already wired for this service.
What if my builder didn’t wire my home correctly for modern communications?
You have a few options. We can still install the service. An easy and popular solution is simply to run a cable from our communications box, located on the outside of your house, to a wireless router inside, and broadcast the internet throughout your house from there. A wireless router will cost about $60, and transmit the signal throughout your house if you want to access the internet from different rooms and use multiple computers. Please note, any inside home wiring modification work is separate from the $99 setup fee that is charged when DSL service is first ordered. That fee is charged to cover costs of activating the service to your home from the street. This install fee can be waived with a 1-year contract.
As a telephone utility provider, we cannot do any work inside private homes.
There are several local companies that can also do any needed inside wiring modifications for you. Call our office for recommendations, or you can find networking companies via the Yellow Pages. You can also run the cable yourself. An easy and popular solution is simply to run a cable from our communications box, located on the outside of your house, to a wireless router inside, and broadcast the internet throughout your house from there. Please feel free to contact us at 208 548 2345 if you have more questions.
When does Direct Communications hope to bring the advantages of fiber optics to older homes in Eagle Mountain?
As the existing copper nears the end of its useful life, we will eventually replace the entire network with fiber.
Is it more expensive than copper? How much does it cost to install fiber optics?
Today, the price of the fiber optic cable has come to down the point where the cable itself isn’t much more expensive than the traditional copper, and of course at the same time, copper is increasingly expensive in today’s global economy. The real expense with fiber is in the electronics. The entire phone switch and head end must be upgraded to support the new fiber network, and Direct Communications has invested several million dollars each year since we bought the network from the city in 2005, to replace the phone switch and make sure we have the most advanced technology available to support the digital transmission of the fiber.
On the customer end, the box (we call it a NID, or network interface device, or now, optical network device) that fits onto the outside of the home, is very expensive, because it’s a far more sophisticated system than the old copper devices. The great thing about this new NID though, is that it supports the new technology that people are using more and more in their home, like home networks. Anybody who builds a house now will want to install CAT-5 network cable to each room, so they can network all their computers together, distribute their internet connection to each room, and many security, intercom and advanced entertainment systems all need network cable thesedays. On our Calyx NID, there is a place you can plug your main Ethernet, or CAT-5 cable, right into the fiber-optic network, so you don’t have to use the old phone line or phone jacks. It’s engineered for the future. There is a little more labor involved in actually burying the fiber than there is with copper, which is just ploughed in directly, because fiber-optics must be run in conduit, but the long term benefits are clear. Also, from what we have seen so far, there is less maintenance required on a fiber network than copper, so over the years, it will save us, and our customers, money.
How was Direct Communications was the first telecom in Southeast Idaho to implement Fiber to the Home in a local phone exchange?
As a small, local telecom, we are a lot more nimble than a big company like Qwest. We have always been pioneers in the industry, and can prepare better for the future than a huge multinational corporation. In new and fast-growing areas, laying out the network with a new technology like fiber makes economic, and good business, sense to us.
How is fiber optics installed?
First, we plow in plastic conduit underground, which is a good method because it has very little environmental impact, then we blow the fiber optic cable through the conduit using compressed air moving at very high speeds. The high-velocity air flow causes the cable to float, and that way we can feed it through very easily. The benefit of doing it this way is that we can feed the cable through many miles of conduit, and avoid doing fiber cable splices, which is the only place where there is potential for data loss. Where the fiber needs to be spliced to serve homes, we put in handholds, or buried manholes with loops of fiber, where we can branch off and pick up those new homes in the future. |
