Tales of the Undead

Tales of the undead are not limited to B movies and long-running TV series. Some cabling tech just never seems to die, or comes back from the dead. How well do you know these zombies? 

1. The fiber optic component that has had the longest useful lifetime is ______.

Correct Answer: Fusion splice

2. Which of these components was considered obsolete for years until it was brought back to life to support gigabit ethernet?

Correct Answer: 50/125 multimode fiber

3. This all-metal connector continues to be used in lots of equipment, especially military and high-powered lasers used for surgery and welding.

Correct Answer: SMA

4. What fiber optic light source was used in almost every multimode data link up until the introduction of gigabit ethernet, but now is only used in test sets?

Correct Answer: 850 nm LED

5. Multimode fiber systems ran out of bandwidth at about 100 megabits per second, but today’s multimode systems can work at 100 gigabits per second. How?

Correct Answer: All of the above

6. The single-mode fiber most widely used today is essentially the same as the original fiber introduced in the early 1980s.

Correct Answer: True

7. Wavelength division multiplexing (WDM) as used in most long-distance networks and fiber to the home today was first used in ______ but faded away for 15 years until the invention of better lasers and WDM multiplexers.

Correct Answer: The original multimode telephone systems of the early 1980s

8. The technology used in passive optical networks was invented in the mid-1980s for ethernet LANs, died, then came back to be used in GPON fiber to the home.

Correct Answer: True

9. The modular 8-pin connector began with telephone systems, but was modified to handle gigabit ethernet by ______ to prevent crosstalk.

Correct Answer: Adding internal twists on the connections

10. Unshielded twisted-pair wiring also started as phone wire, but ______ modifications made it usable for gigabit networks.

Correct Answer: All of the above

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