List the main considerations when designing a basic fiber optic system. Remember that there are many ways to approach fiber optic system design and there are many different fiber optic systems. Before beginning a fiber optic system design, two questions need to be answered: How much data needs to be moved and what is the transmission distance? Also remember that there are two rules of thumb to help you design a link to meet your data rate and transmission distance expectations.

Describe the bandwidth advantages of optical fiber over twisted-pair and coaxial copper cables. Remember that single-mode systems with laser transmitters offer the greatest bandwidth and that multimode systems with LED transmitters offer the least bandwidth. The bandwidth of optical fiber and copper cable is inversely proportional to its length. In other words, as the length of the optical fiber or copper cable increases, the bandwidth of the optical fiber or copper cable decreases.

Describe the attenuation advantages of optical fiber over twisted-pair and coaxial copper cables. Remember that all transmission mediums lose signal strength over distance and the loss of signal strength, or attenuation, is typically measured in decibels. Optical fiber systems measure attenuation using optical power. Copper cable systems typically use voltage drop across a defined load at various transmission frequencies to measure attenuation.

Remember that attenuation in copper cables is measured at different frequencies. This is not the case with optical fiber, where attenuation is measured with a continuous wave light source...