Copper vrs Fibre - which transmits data faster?
Here is my 14 cents worth.
Theoretically, in an electrical circuit, a signal doesn't travel down the copper wire in the same way as photons (light) shoot down a fibre-optic pipe.
In an electrical circuit, the electrons all move in unison like a giant link chain all the way down the wire. In fact, the whole chain wobbles back and forth never actually traveling anywhere because high frequency signals are AC current.
However, the movement of this chain link of electrons is transmitting data (the moving electron stream is modulated in some way to represent information, also known as The Signal). Theoretical physics (first postulated by Einstein) says that nothing can travel faster than the speed of light, including information (a signal). What this says is, when an electron current is caused to flow in a wire, the time taken for the chain link of electrons to be detected to be moving at the other end of the wire is equal to the speed of light.
The speed of a signal sent via copper is equal to fibre.
BUT!
Computer data is broken into packets of information that travel through networks via numerous of these "chain link" circuits that travel long distances on wire/fibre but interspersed via termination points where routers direct packets to different IP addresses.
The whole system is managed via a scheme called TCP/IP (Transmission Control Protocol / Internet Protocol).
Part of the TCP/IP protocol includes error checking where each packet of information is inspected at each end of the wire/fibre cables to see if it has been corrupted (due to electrical interference on wires or due to photon fade in long distance fibre).
If a corrupt packet is detected, the router signals back down the wire for the packet (or group of packets) to be re-transmitted. This need to resend packets is what slows down data speeds more than anything.
A piece of information (for example a share trade), transmitted via TCP/IP will not be complete until all the packets sent have been reassembled by the final destination device (The Network Interface Card in the destination computer).
Copper (or any conductor) is prone to electrical interference which increases with distance (hence why internet connections on ADSL are slower the further distance from the telephone exchange).
Fibre is not prone to electrical interference, and hence is the preferred option for very long distance data transmission.
At short distances (i.e a few metres) the speeds are identical.
IMO
