Free space optical communication [post #3]

Why in news?

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• X Development LLC, a subsidiary of Alphabet will supply and deploy
two thousand cutting-edge Free Space Optical Communication (FSOC)
links for Andhra Pradesh (AP) fiber-grid.

What is Free Space Optical Communication?

• It is an optical communication technology in which data is transmitted
by propagation of light in free space allowing optical connectivity.
• Working of FSO is similar to OFC (optical fiber cable) networks but the only difference is that the optical
beams are sent through free air or vaccum instead of glass fiber.
• It is a Line of Sight (LOS) technology. It consists of an optical transceiver at both ends to provide full duplex
(bidirectional) capability.
• It is capable of sending up to 1.25 Gbps of data, voice, and video communications simultaneously through
the air.

Advantages

• It has low initial investment and is a flexible network that delivers better speed than broadband.
• High data rate can be obtained which is comparable to the optical fiber cable’s data rate but error rate is
very low.
• The extremely narrow laser beam enables having unlimited number of FSO links which can be installed in a
specific area.
• It is a secure system because of line of sight operation. Therefore, no security upgradation is needed.
• There is no need for spectrum license or frequency coordination between users as it is required in radio and
microwave systems previously.
• Electromagnetic and radio-magnetic interference cannot affect the transmission in FSO link.
Challenges
• The transmitted optical signal is affected by various limitations before arriving at the receiver such as
misalignment errors, geometric losses, background noise, weather attenuation losses and atmospheric
turbulence.

Source of this article vision ias