Advantages & disadvantage of optical fiber

Advantages of optical fiber :

1. The optical fibers have greater information carrying capacities than metallic conductors.
2. The optical fiber are lighter and smaller.The optical fiber cables are cheaper to transport and easier to install than metal cables.
3. The optical fibers and fiber cables are very strong and flexible.
4. The optical fibers are so slender that they do not break when wrapped around curves of only a few centimeter radius.
5. One of the most important advantage of fibers is that they can carry large amount of information in either digital or analog form.
6. Optical fiber is well protected from external interference.
7. Radar and other signals cannot introduce any interference in the fiber.
8. It has greater bandwidth.
9. Resistances to high temperature.

Disadvantage of optical fiber :

1. It is a high investment cost or installation is costly.
2. It is need more expansive transmitter and receiver equipments.
3. More difficult and expensive to splice then wires.
4. It cannot carry electrical power to operate terminal devices.
5. At higher optical powers, fiber is more prone to fiber flux, so optical fiber may get damaged.