Although copper still dominates most office LANs, fiber optic cable forms the backbone of many networks. And as prices drop, fiber is gaining popularity for applications once restricted to copper cable.
With these trends in mind, I thought I put together a quick pop quiz on the basics of fiber optic LAN and WAN cabling basics. The quiz covers safety, cable types, common light sources, attenuation, splicing, and cable testing.
I realize this quiz barely scratches the surface of fiber cabling knowledge. Indeed, entire books have been written on designing, building, and managing fiber optic networks. My goal with this quiz is to give you a brief introduction to several important fiber optic cabling concepts.
Note: Unfortunately, our poll tool, which I use to create each pop quiz, doesn’t let me indicate a correct answer after each question. To keep from giving away the answers before everyone has a chance to test his/her knowledge, and ruining all the fun, I’m going to hold off posting the answers until later.
Update: The answers for my Fiber optic LAN and WAN cable basics pop quiz are now available. If you haven’t had a chance to take the quiz, I encourage you to try your luck, before reading the answers.
Which of the following is a critical safety concern when working with or around LAN or WAN fiber optic cables?
What are the two general types of fiber optic cable found in current networking environments?
True or False: All fiber optic cables have the same type of physical connector?
Which of the following is NOT a light source used with LAN or WAN fiber cable?
Attenuation, or transmission loss, in fiber optic cables, beyond the intrinsic absorption of the fiber material, can be due to which of the following?
What type of coupling loss occurs when each fiber core is perfectly seated and aligned and has the same diameter, but the transmitting fiber has a light cone larger than the receiving fiber can take?
Which of the following fiber optic testing devices uses light pulses to estimate a fiber cable's length and measure attenuation?
Which of the following devices is often used in conjunction with an overfilled light source when testing for attenuation on multimode fiber cables?
An OTDR can locate which of the following characteristics within a fiber run?
Which type of fiber cable splicing welds fibers together using a small electric arc?
More TechRepublic resources on fiber optic cabling:
- When to use fiber optic cabling in your network installations
- Learn the basics of fiber-optic technologies and how to determine which is right for your organization
- Find faults in fiber
- Get IT Done: Maintaining fiber-optic connections takes a creative approach
- Get IT Done: Diagram a building-to-building fiber network with Visio
- Inspection and Cleaning Procedures for Fiber-Optic Connections
- Calculating Fiber Loss and Distances
- Fiber-To-The-Home White Paper
- Fiber to the Home Architectures
- Free On-Demand Webcast: Choosing an OTDR for your Enterprise Fiber Optic Testing
- Free On-Demand Webcast: How to Perform Advanced Fiber Troubleshooting Using an OTDR
