Doesn’t Wireless Mean No Wires? Understanding Fiber Optics in a Wireless World.

Al Aymar is the Product Manager for Element Mobile

Recently there has been discussion regarding fiber and the role it plays in Wireless Communications. Specifically, there was a brief outage due to a fiber cut which brought about the question: What is fiber, and what does it have to do with wireless service? After all, wireless means no wires, right?

‘Fiber’ is short for Fiber Optics. Fiber Optics is used by many communication services including cable TV, landline phones, wireless phones, and internet service providers. Fiber Optics is preferred because of its ability to handle high volumes of information at incredibly high speeds. Fiber Optics is commercially available to businesses and homes as well.  You may have even heard about services offered by installing “Fiber to the Home.” That’s fiber optics.

Back to fiber in a moment, first a bit about mobile communication.  Wireless phones do not “talk to each other” they way that CBs, walkie-talkies, and 2-way radios do. Rather, wireless phones require a tower or antenna to operate. So wireless is only truly wireless between your phone and the tower that your phone is signaling with. This is true no matter where you are, if you are home or roaming, if you are making a call or receiving calls, sending or receiving messages, or uploading or downloading information. If you are using a carrier’s wireless signal and service, your wireless communication is only wireless between your phone and the tower or cell site antenna you are signaling with.

Likely you have placed a phone call from your home or business phone to some far off destination and it only takes seconds to start ringing. Amazing, huh? Wireless communications access and use the very same networks and technology to accomplish the same thing, but with the convenience of doing this while being mobile. Really, the whole idea of wireless communication is to have a mobile connection to the existing wired communication networks.

The existing communication networks being referred to are those networks owned and operated by the thousands of phone companies, internet companies, and cable companies throughout our nation and the world. So it’s from your mobile to the tower and from the tower into the connected world. Turned around, the connected world finds the tower you are signaling with and delivers calls and messages to your mobile. Admittedly, there is a lot more to this, but this is wireless communication in its most basic form.

Sending and receiving mobile calls, messages, and browsing is all made possible by towers connecting mobile phones to the existing wired network, much of which is made of fiber optics. So, when there is a cut or problem with an important fiber optic line, the result is disruption. Sometimes, a single fiber optic line will carry calls and information for several companies and if that fiber line is cut it can impact many service providers and several forms of communication service. That said, most fiber is buried safely in the ground and the modern network allows technicians to quickly locate and mend fiber lines that need repair. Also, there are a lot of existing fiber lines that communications companies use to set backup routes and create redundancy for their services. Lastly, wireless and wire line networks are solid and improvements are constantly made to keep disruptions to an absolute minimum.

So there it is, mobile communications are an extension of the existing wired communication networks. And because of that, problems with wire lines, fiber optics, and other issues within the connected world can potentially disrupt wireless services at times… a cut fiber line is a good example of this.