WHAT ARE THE ISSUES SURROUNDING FIBER OPTICS?
While fiber optics shows promise to enhance our future, there are issues surrounding its development. Legal, social, ethical, and security issues hold back the development and dampen its progress.
Legal Issues
One legal issue surrounding the development of fiber optics appears during the installation of the fiber optic cables. When workers dig to lay down new fiber optic cables, they sometimes hit old wires and break them. This creates legal problems as to who’s at fault, and what needs to be done. This can create legal battles within companies and halt installation of more fiber optic cables for a while (Burkhalter, 2012). Another legal issue when dealing with fiber optics is cable companies wanting to block cities from building their own fiber networks. Cable companies and cities have fought the past few years for the right to build fiber optic cables in certain cities. Cable companies want to build in the cities to get more money, while the city wants to build to gain more tax money. This results in lobbying by cable companies and complex legal battles to determine the result of who can install the cables (Fung, 2014).
Social Issues
Social issues are also a problem when dealing with fiber optics. Fiber optics is a development that can greatly affect societies in both positive and negative ways. While increasing the internet speed with fiber optics can improve living standards with more access to information, this same access can widen the gap in inequality. In third world countries like Colombia, not many resources are put into new technology. In return, there is little information that can be access through the internet. When it is possible to have good internet, it comes at a high cost. This widens the gap in technological inequality when dealing with the access of information. If everyone could access the internet, it could result in more democratic societies, better public participation in making decisions, and increase in expertise that could lead to more development. If the development of fiber optics could be brought into more countries, social problems could be lessened (Soto, n.d.). This same gap in internet speed can cause social issues in the United States. People get upset when fiber optic internet speeds aren’t available in their area. This causes social issues which companies have to handle. This could hurt the company’s reputation, which would halt some of the progress they have made.
Ethical Issues
While there are social and legal issues that surround the development of fiber optics, there are not many ethical issues that involve the development of fiber optics. One could question the morality of the construction process when it comes to installing the fiber optic cables. The process of installing fiber optic cables can result in the disturbance of the environment. It could force animals to relocate and plants to die. This process of installing cables and damaging the environment is not only happening underground on land, but also in the sea. Whether or not faster internet is worth damaging the environment is an ethical question that could stall the development of fiber optics (Schofield, 2014).
Security Issues
Security issues are problems with any type of technology, and fiber optics is no exception. When the development of fiber optic cables first started, people boasted them as the most secure way of communication, but after a few years that has been proven wrong. It is now known that if a person has the knowledge of how to tap into a fiber optics network, they can easily do so. If the security attacker can access the physical fiber optic cable, they can retrieve the packets sent in the connection. The attackers can tamper with the information and have access to delicate information. One action being taken to decrease the amount of taped communications is providing strong physical security around the fiber optic cables. This will keep attackers off the cables and out of private communications. Although some solutions have been proposed, security is still an issue fiber optics is dealing with (Pascucci, n.d.).
