What is Fiber Optics?
Fiber optics is a technology that uses strands of optically pure glass to carry digital information from one point to another in the form of light waves.  Oxford Networks uses this technology to transmit telephone, Internet, data, and digital cable television.

A fiber optic system consists of:

• A transmitting device, which produces the light signal
• A fiber optic cable consisting of a bundle of pure glass strands, which transports the light signal
• A receiver, which accepts the light signal transmitted
• The fiber itself is passive; it simply carries whatever signal is put across it

                 
Fiber Optic Technology and Connectivity

• Virtually all businesses have a copper “pipe” that connects them to a communication network, be it cable, telephone or data.  The wire that connects the building to the network (telephone pole, etc) is a critical component, as most often it is where you find a bandwidth bottleneck.  Offering high-speed data services to an area is largely dependent on the last mile connection. 
  
  
• In a FTTP deployment, fiber optic cable replaces the traditional copper wire.
  
  
• Fiber removes the bandwidth ‘bottleneck’ that can occur in copper pipe and opens up a building to a virtually unlimited supply of data services.
  
  
• By placing fiber optics into a business, it allows Oxford Networks to scale bandwidth up to 1 Gigabyte.
  
  
• Fiber optic technology is synchronous, meaning that it is capable of high-speed uploading and downloading of information.
  
  
• A Fiber Optic Network is flexible. With up-to 1 Gigabyte of bandwidth, a building’s available bandwidth can be easily increased or decreased in minutes, if necessary. This is not true of copper networks which most often require additional customer premise equipment, different telephony equipment, can take several weeks or months to deploy, and often involve costly contracts.
  
  
• A Fiber Optic Network is more reliable. Fiber optic’s glass properties are not affected by environmental conditions. Copper, on the other hand, is affected by cold and hot temperatures that can impact service quality. Oxford Networks’ 600-mile fiber optic network offers critical redundancies that provide the highest standard of performance for customer businesses along its corridor.
  
  
• A Fiber Optic Network allows for enhanced security and monitoring. 
  Fiber optic cable cannot be physically hacked as can copper wire.  It also allows for enhanced network monitoring.  Oxford Networks can proactively react to service issues and even accurately pin-point problems within a 10-foot span of fiber from its Network Operations Center.

Who Benefits from Fiber to the Premise (FTTP) Connectivity?
Businesses of all sizes can benefit from FTTP. The grade of service, reliability and bandwidth capacity granted by fiber are unmatched by copper networks. Even though the attributes of fiber optics are exponentially greater, the cost is not. In fact, many of the services Oxford Networks provides are able to save customers money.