Comment by mschuster91
4 years ago
> But ultimately the default became non-optical because it can carry power too.
There's no problem in making a cable with two fibre leads for data and two (at higher lengths thicker to reduce issues with voltage drop) power lines.
That’s a good point although optical usb3 and thunderbolt3 cables tend to be advertised with electrical isolation as a feature and suggest using an external hub to provide power.[1]
[1] https://www.corning.com/optical-cables-by-corning/worldwide/...
Whoa, that pricing is quite a bit.
Yeah that must be the real reason it didn’t catch on as a default. Light peak did have cheaper cables though, the optical part was in the connector, not the cable. The connector was a usb-a connector if I remember correctly.. and the history is actually pretty interesting! Apparently that connector was deemed proprietary and frowned upon by the usb folks for causing consumer confusion[1]. Kind of hilarious now, seeing how thunderbolt 1/2 ended up barely being adopted outside of Apple and usb itself is a confusing mess these days.
[1] https://www.theverge.com/2011/10/14/2490694/how-sony-acciden...
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