In Waveguides and Cables
Guided media such as coaxial and twisted pair electrical cable, radio frequency waveguide and optical fiber have losses that are exponential with distance.
The path loss will be in terms of dB per unit distance.
This means that there is always a crossover distance beyond which the loss in a guided medium will exceed that of a line-of-sight path of the same length.
Long distance fiber-optic communication became practical only with the development of ultra-transparent glass fibers. A typical path loss for single mode fiber is 0.2 dB/km, far lower than any other guided medium.
Read more about this topic: Link Budget
Famous quotes containing the word cables:
“On the bare upland pasture there had spread
O’ernight ‘twixt mullein stalks a wheel of thread
And straining cables wet with silver dew.”
—Robert Frost (1874–1963)