Telecommunication has the greatest impact in our daily life than any other technology. For instance, cellular phones have become necessity of every age group. In order to provide efficient service to the public, scientists, working in Telecommunication industry, are continuously searching for new technologies. The worldwide demand for bandwidth seems to double every three years.

Only optical fiber can satisfy such information capacity requirements. In recent years, it has become apparent that fiber optics is steadily replacing copper wire as the standard means of signal transmission in telecommunication. They span the long distances between local phone systems providing the backbone for many network systems. Other system users include cable television services, university campuses, office buildings, industrial plants, and electric utility companies.

In this research, I explore the traditional glass fiber, as well as, the emerging plastic fiber as a potential competitor. Modified FS* Fiber simulation package is developed to cover all aspects of fiber optic communication systems. It includes software to simulate both wavelength division multiplexing (WDM) systems and optical time division multiplexing (OTDM) systems.

With the help of the modified FS* simulation model, one can observe the behavior of fiber optic systems with noisy light emitting diodes (LED). In addition, effects of leakage in erbium doped systems and variation of signal to noise ratio (SNR), with the pulse width, as well as, the fiber characteristics, can be observed. The modified FS* simulation model also contains separate routines not only to simulate the traditional glass fiber, but also to simulate the new plastic fiber.

Keywords: Telecommunication, bandwidth, fiber optics, backbone, WDM, OTDM, Modified FS* fiber simulation model, SNR