• Optical communication has more reliability

• Using Optical medium electrical signals are converted into light impulses using laser diodes

Mechanism of optical communication

• Pulse amplitude is reduced and the signal is attenuated
• Pulse width tends to increase with distance by a phenomenon of dispersion

Advantages of optical communication

• Raw bandwidth of a typical fiber can be as high as several hundred GHz.

• Optical signals are immune to the effects of electromagnetic inferences

• 2 configurations in optical communication

– Point to point network
• In point to point networks there are no taps
• Here we have electrical to optical and optical to electric converters to effect signal conversion
• Node checks the message intactness
– Passive star
• Here each interface delivers its optical output to a glass cylinder, the passive star
• Output energy is divided among the fibers that go out of the cylinder
• Interface picks up the output of all signals

Disadvantages of optical communication

• It would be difficult to passively tap optical fibers without significant signal loss
• Optical amplifiers are expensive