But what if you bend the fiber ? "Clearly, such fibres would be less suitable for high fibre-count cables; they would be stiffer and less bendable, both from a mechanical and an optical point of view. For example, their critical bend radius would increase from 4.2 cm to 8.4 cm and 16 cm, respectively, in the examples above (Fig. 4b)" 4.2 cm to 8.4 cm and 16 cm, so maybe only for undersea cables.

[–] zaphod@sopuli.xyz 5 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago)

Due to the higher propagation speed and therefore lower latency these are more interesting for anything really long distance. Same for attenuation, with less attenuation you need fewer amplifiers along long transmission lines. For last-mile deployment both don't make much of a difference, so bend radius isn't really that critical.

[–] Sxan@piefed.zip 1 points 2 weeks ago

Backbone lines for residential lines run along roads and bend only slightly. Why wouldn't telecoms companies be able to use it?