Fiber optic cables don't carry electricity at all. They just flash light and let physics handle the rest

[ElPresidente]

Traditional cable and DSL internet connections send data as electrical signals traveling through copper wire, the same basic principle behind telegraph lines from over a century ago, just refined and sped up considerably. Fiber optic internet works completely differently, encoding data as pulses of light and sending them through incredibly thin strands of glass or plastic, each one roughly the width of a human hair, bundled together by the dozens or hundreds inside a single protective cable

At the source, a laser or LED generates rapid pulses of light representing data in binary form, the same underlying 0s and 1s used throughout computing, and those pulses travel down the fiber strand at around two thirds the actual speed of light, dramatically faster and more efficient than electrons moving through copper wire ever could be. When the light reaches its destination, a piece of equipment called an optical network terminal converts it back into an electrical signal your router and devices can actually understand and use

Because it uses light rather than electricity, fiber is also completely immune to electromagnetic interference from nearby power lines, storms or other electrical equipment, something that can degrade a traditional copper connection's signal quality. It also suffers far less signal loss over long distances, which is why fiber has become the backbone connecting the internet's major data centers globally, even in places where the final stretch into individual homes still sometimes runs over older copper infrastructure, creating a real world bottleneck where the fastest part of the journey ends at a neighborhood box before slowing back down over that last, older copper connection

Fiber Optics And The Speed Of Lightjumpfiber.com

[Pat]

Two thirds the actual speed of light for the data transmission itself is such a wild, concrete number, that alone explains the entire efficiency and speed advantage in one sentence

[TheRock96]

The electromagnetic interference immunity is an underrated benefit that gets far less attention than the raw speed numbers, no more signal degradation from a nearby thunderstorm or power line

[Hawk]

The last mile copper bottleneck detail explains so much real world frustration people have with fiber marketed speeds not actually matching what they experience at home

[MJF86]

Comparing this to refined telegraph technology for traditional copper connections is a clever way to frame how fundamentally different the underlying physics actually is here

[BatchWizard]

This finally explains why fiber cables are physically so thin yet carry so much more data than a comparatively bulky copper cable ever could

[Quarry18]

Good reminder that the optical network terminal converting light back to electricity is a necessary, often overlooked piece of hardware making this whole system actually usable on ordinary devices

[ProperMadlad20]

The bundling of dozens or hundreds of hair thin strands into one cable is an elegant piece of physical engineering that most casual explanations of internet speed skip right over

[Lucy_35]

Appreciate that this explains why fiber forms the actual global backbone of the internet even in areas where individual homes still connect via older, slower copper infrastructure

[Violet_47]

Photonics may be the future after all

[CollapseState75]

This is exactly the kind of concrete, physically grounded explanation that finally makes fiber internet's marketing claims about speed make complete intuitive sense rather than just sounding like a bigger number