The battle between fiber optics and copper cables has been raging for over a decade. Today, with the continuous emergence of new services like cloud computing and 5G, the scale of data centers continues to expand, and their architecture and cabling are becoming increasingly complex. However, the light weight of fiber optics and their gradually decreasing cost make backbone network equipment more challenging for fiber optics. Demand is also strengthening, and the proportion of fiber optics in large data centers is reaching 70%, significantly higher than that of copper cables.
1. Comparison of applications
Although driven by the demand for greater bandwidth in the data center, the optical fibers They occupy a larger share in data center implementation, especially in the application backbone, due to the advantages of higher transmission speed and greater bandwidth; but, in fact, copper cables will remain an integral part of data centers and, in applications in special environments, such as voice transmission and power supply, copper cables cannot be replaced by optical fibers.
2. Unique advantages of copper cables
In the integrated horizontal cabling within 100 meters, the fiber optics It is inferior to copper cable in terms of maintenance, cost, and cabling. The fiber core in optical fiber is a special type of glass fiber, which is more fragile than the copper in copper cable. During cabling and subsequent maintenance, if extra care is not taken with the optical fiber, it will break easily, increasing costs. Regarding the current market situation, although the price of optical fiber has decreased, it is still higher than the price of copper cable overall; therefore, compared to optical fiber, copper cable cabling and maintenance are more convenient and cost-effective.
In power supply applications, such as voice signal transmission and wireless access, PoE power supply systems, fiber optics cannot replace copper cable.
Post time: Jan-10-2023
