Optical fiber is a transmission medium with very good characteristics in terms of high capacity and low attenuation, which makes it an ideal medium to be used in telecommunications networks, allowing large amounts of data to be sent over long distances.
Pure fiber optic networks are composed entirely of fiber optic cables, so they are also referred to as Fiber To The Home (FTTH) networks.
FTTH networks can be of two types according to their topology:
- Point-to-point networks: if each user is connected by an individual fiber to the hub; or
- Point-multipoint networks: if several users share the same length of fiber from their home to the power station.
The latter type is also known as PON (Passive Optical Network) networks, as they use passive electronic components in their construction and are the most economical and widespread type of network today.
FTTH networks offer much higher download speeds than conventional copper networks that use xDSL services, being able to achieve theoretical download speeds of more than 1 Gbit/s under ideal conditions, although in practice the commercialized speeds may be lower due to various factors. FTTH networks also allow for greater symmetry, i.e. more similar values, for data upload and download speeds.