What are the four types of industries using fiber-optic cabling?

Enterprise networks, fiber-to-the-home (FTTH), long-haul provider networks, and submarine cable networks.

Fiber's reach and bandwidth make it the medium of choice wherever distance or capacity is the priority, and four industries lean on it for exactly those reasons:

1. Enterprise networks — used for backbone cabling and interconnecting infrastructure devices within and between buildings, where many users' traffic is aggregated onto one link. (This is the most common enterprise use of fiber.)
2. Fiber-to-the-Home (FTTH) — delivers always-on broadband to homes and small businesses, replacing copper on the "last mile" to the customer.
3. Long-haul networks — used by service providers to connect cities and countries over very long terrestrial routes.
4. Submarine cable networks — high-speed, high-capacity links engineered to survive harsh undersea conditions at transoceanic distances; these are what physically carry most intercontinental internet traffic.

The common thread: each of these needs more bandwidth and/or far greater distance than copper can give, which is precisely where fiber's strengths pay off.

Go deeper:

• Optical fiber — Wikipedia — applications across enterprise, access (FTTH), long-haul, and submarine networks.

• Single-mode optical fiber — Wikipedia — the long-distance fiber behind long-haul and submarine cable systems.