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Thin strands that carry information as pulses of light, used in communications networks.
A fibre has a core surrounded by cladding with different optical properties that help confine the light. Some signal energy is lost as light travels, so long routes need suitable optical equipment and amplification or regeneration arrangements. Many strands can sit inside one cable. Damage to that cable can disrupt connections unless traffic has another usable route with sufficient capacity.
Suppose an idealised connection transfers data at one gigabit per second. A ten-gigabyte file contains eighty gigabits when using decimal units, so its theoretical transfer time is eighty seconds. Actual transfer takes longer if other traffic, protocol overhead, server speed or access-network limits reduce the usable rate. Installing fibre does not by itself establish that every customer can download that file at the assumed speed.
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