of each speaker. Cable television companies can offer hundreds of channels all through the new fiber optic hook ups to our homes. With the advent of fiber optics, televisions will become interactive allowing capabilities almost the equivalent of an online computer.Even for those homes which are not yet wired with fiber optics, the transformation of their living rooms into the media centers of the future isnt that far off. This paper was prepared by writers at The Paper Store... Approximately sixty-five percent of homes presently have traditional copper wire-based cable service. This number is greater, however, for traditional telephone service, up to ninety percent. About eighty percent of U.S. households fall within an 18,000-foot radius of a telephone switching office (Brody PG). The conversion to fiber optics could potentially be almost one-hundred percent complete, however, within just a few years.With new advances in technology even the remaining copper wire systems can be used to receive large amounts of information over short distances while simultaneously allowing, for example, traditional voice transmissions. Fiber optics can be used to transmit huge amounts of data over long distances to a central point, for example in a subdivision, where it could then be connected to the existing copper wire-based system into the homes of customers. This union of the two technologies would expedite fiber optic connection and capability substantially. Business/Educational ApplicationsFiber optics is not only the wave of the future, it is now. Through the use of these revised systems coupled with such features as interactive video (IVOD), viewers will have access to phenomenal amounts of stored data. They will have full control of their programming both in the times they choose to watch it and in how much they watch at a time or how many segments they choose to view more than once or to skip over utilizing fast forward, rewind and...
