1.1 The Fundamental Problem of Communications

The subject of interest in this book is premises data communications using fiber optic cable as the transmission medium. This is at once a very specific yet very extensive topic. It is an important topic both within the context of data communications today and into the future. All, or almost all, aspects of this subject will be explored. However, it seems rather forbidding just to jump into this topic.Rather, it is more appropriate to take a step back to the very beginning and talk about the nature of communications first. This will allow some needed terminology to be introduced. It will also lead us in a natural way to the subject of fiber optic cable as a transmission medium and to why it is attractive for premises data links.Of course, the reader, well versed in data communications, may choose to skip past this introduction and suffer no real penalty.The subject of communications really begins with the situation shown in Figure 1-1. Here is an entity called the Source and one called the User- located remotely from the Source. The Source generates Information and the User desires to learn what this Information is.

Examples of this situation are everywhere prevalent. However, our attention will only be focused on the case illustrated in Figure 1-2 where the Information is a sequence of binary digits, 0's and 1's, bits. Information in this case is termed data. Information of this type is generally associated with computers, computing type devices and peripherals-equipment shown in Figure 1-3. Limiting Information to data presents no real limitation. Voice, images, indeed most other types of Information can be processed to look like data by carrying sampling and Analog-to-Digital conversion.

It is absolutely impossible in the real world for the User to obtain the Information without the chance of error. These may be caused by a variety of deleterious effects that shall be discussed in the sequel.This means that the User wanting to learn the Information- the binary sequence- must be content in learning it to within a given fidelity. The fidelity measure usually employed is the Bit Error Rate (BER). This is just the probability that a specific generated binary digit at the Source, a bit, is received in error, opposite to what it is, at the User.There are some real questions as to how appropriate this fidelity measure is in certain applications. Nonetheless, it is so widely employed in practice, at this point, that further discussion is not warranted.The question then arises as to how to send the binary data stream from Source to User. A Transmission Medium is employed to transport the Information from Source to User. What is a Transmission Medium?

A Transmission Medium is some physical entity. As shown in Figure 1-4 it is located between the Source and the User and it is accessible to both. The Transmission Medium has a set of properties described by physical parameters. The set of properties exists in a quiescent state. However, at least one of these properties can be stressed or disturbed at the Source end. This is accomplished by somehow imparting energy in order to stress the property. This disturbance does not stay still, but affects the parts of the Transmission Medium around it. This disturbance then travels from the Source end to the User end. Consequently, energy imparted in creating the disturbance is thereby transferred from the Source end to the User end. Finally, this disturbance or stressed property, can be sensed at the User end. It can be measured