Module 4 Assignment: Copper Vs. Fiber

Unit 4 Assignment 1 Copper vs. Fiber Paper
Copper wire is found in most household electric or electrical related devices. One advantage of copper wire is its conductivity. Copper wire is second only to silver wire in level of conductivity meaning it will accept a current more so than almost any other type of wire. Copper wire is also heat resistant and can handle high levels of charge without many issues with overloading the wire. Copper in itself is also resistant to corrosion. This helps keep it working even when the material is tarnished. Copper also has a great amount of ductility. This also for it to be very thin and still work, also this allows for copper to be twisted, bent and otherwise shaped into almost any form without the threat of the wire snapping. A weakness with copper materials is that it does not respond very well to small minute amounts of electrical charge.
Fiber optic cable possesses various advantages over the much cheaper copper wiring. One of those advantages is bandwidth. Fiber optic cabling offers a much greater bandwidth than copper wiring, fiber currently can run at 10 Gbps, which is not currently the standard but with more and more companies making the switch daily, it may be a reality soon enough. Due to the fact that fiber optic signals are made of light, very little of the transmission gets lost during travel. This also allows it to move further distances and doing so at greater speeds. Unlike copper wires which have a limit of being installed at 100 meters, fiber optic cables can be installed up to 40 kilometers. Due to the fact that the signals are light, fiber optic is very difficult to tap, this would cause it to leak light and fail making it a more secure cabling method than copper wire. The core of fiber optics is glass making it immune to many of the environmental factors that inhibit copper wire from