ABSTRACT
Fiber optic cabling is extremely lightweight cable that replaces copper wire with hair-thin strands of glass or plastic. Glass fiber optic cable routinely sends 100 million bits of information per second. And although fiber optic cable is lightweight and made of glass, it is strong. Another advantage of fiber optic cable is that, because it uses light, not electric signal, it is virtually impossible to tap without detection. The main use of fiber optic cable for TV transmission has been the kind of feed described in the section on satellites backhauling to bring in remote feeds to be inserted in a final production. On the contrary, virtually all long-distance phone lines in Japan and the European Community consist of fiber optic cable, and the rest of the world is racing to catch up. And one striking fact is that fiber optic cable is reaching the point at which it is in direct competition with many satellite services.
