The first thing you might think is that it doesn’t make sense for optical fiber to reach our house and for the communication mechanism between our router and the PC to be a set of eight copper wires. But, the truth is that this design is still more than enough in the home environment.
Technology that, for now, stands the test of time
Although it may seem old to use a four-pair copper Ethernet cable, it was actually a big step forward. The first solution Development Xerox in 1973 and it was a coax ethernet cable, similar to that of the television antenna. These first cables were rigid and later a more flexible variant was developed, but also very limited.
Was in 1989 when the first developed Ethernet cable made from copper wires. This is where the four-pair copper Ethernet cable was first introduced. For this first system, only two of the four pairs transmitted data to a maximum speed of 10Mb/s.
The first of the great leaps has arrived 2001 with the Category 5e and he endured 1000 MB/s and in 2002 the Category 6which improved the frequency of work and maintained transfer speed.
We jump to 2009 when the Category 6A which allowed speeds of up to 10 GB/s at a frequency of 500 MHz. 2010 when the Category 7 10 Gb/s at 600 MHz and the Category 7A 10 Gb/s to 1 GHz. The most recent is Category 8 introduced into 2016 which supports up to 40 GB/s
Currently the home network cards Support between 1 Gb/s and 2.5 Gb/s. For both of these cases, Category 6A cables are more than enough, even some Category 6 cables would be compatible.
Well, there are three reasons to keep using copper pairs
The first of the reasons it’s him economic. Although the price of optical fiber has come down a lot due to the increased use and improvement in technology, it is quite more expensive than an ethernet cable of pairs in copper.
As a second reason not to use the cables of optical fiber
Finally, as a last reason, we must Fiber optic cables are extremely delicate. If such a cable it bends in excess or take a hitsuch as mounting between the wall and the desk, i could break it and stop working. The mechanical strength of copper wires is much higher.
These are the three main reasons why the copper pair system is still maintained. It seems difficult, at the moment, to change it, because there are no technical reasons for such a change. Note that optical fiber is used in data centers and large-scale computer systems where the high bandwidth and speed it offers outweighs the expense. At the home level, the use of fiber optic cable is not an improvement over the copper pair.
