Fiber Optic Communications For Beginners: The Basics

This is an introductory text for those interested in fiber optic communi-cations. This text provides a frame-work on which the student can organize additional, detailed know-ledge. It is not designed to be comprehensive.
The words in bold print are the important technical terms. Recog-nition of these terms is essential to understanding the subtleties of this powerful and exciting technology.
This text is a result of this author’s 38 years in fiber optic commun-ications. During this time, this author has trained more than 8800 people in more than 530 presentations. This experience has shown this author the concepts that people understand easily. These are the concepts in this text. Enjoy.