[LINK] Fibre signal losses and wireless

[David Lochrin]

On 2016-07-02 11:42 JanW  wrote:

> AFAIK, light doesn't 'degrade' because it's in the glass. It's pulses of light, not radio waves w/ frequencies.

Jan, the light pulses still consist of electromagnetic radiation and the fibre is, effectively, a waveguide.  Hence the pulses become "smeared out" because the glass doesn't handle the frequency spectrum equally (group distortion), and there's some loss near the glass surface too, even with modern fibre, besides simple attenuation.

Or at least that's my understanding, maybe a better-informed Linker can expand..

David L.