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According to wikipedia, Fiber optics means

An optical fiber (or fibre) is a glass or plastic fiber designed to guide light along its length by confining as much light as possible in a propagating form. In fibers with large core diameter, the confinement is based on total internal reflection. In smaller diameter core fibers, (widely used for most communication links longer than 200m) the confinement relies on establishing a waveguide. Fiber optics is the overlap of applied science and engineering concerned with such optical fibers. Optical fibers are widely used in fiber-optic communication, which permits digital data transmission over longer distances and at higher data rates than other forms of wired and wireless communications. They are also used to form sensors, and in a variety of other applications.

The term optical fiber covers a range of different designs including graded-index optical fibers, step-index optical fibers, birefringent polarization-maintaining fibers and more recently photonic crystal fibers, with the design and the wavelength of the light propagating in the fiber dictating whether or not it will be multi-mode optical fiber or single-mode optical fiber. Because of the mechanical properties of the more common glass optical fibers, special methods of splicing fibers and of connecting them to other equipment are needed. Manufacture of optical fibers is based on partially melting a chemically doped preform and pulling the flowing material on a draw tower. Fibers are built into different kinds of cables depending on how they will be used.

The light-guiding principles behind optical fibers was first demonstrated in Victorian times, but modern optical fibers were only developed beginning in the 1950s. Optical fibers became practical for use in communications in the late 1970s, once the attenuation was reduced sufficiently, since then several technical advances have been made to improve the attenuation and dispersion properties of optical fibers, (allowing signals to travel further and carry more information), and lower the cost of fiber communications systems.