1. Consisting of bundles of glass or plastic threads, a fiber optic cable transmits data using light. While expensive to install and more fragile and difficult to split than traditional metal (usually copper) communication lines, fiber optics have several advantages. First, they can transmit more data because they have a great bandwidth. They\'re also thinner, lighter and less susceptible than metal cables to interference. And they can transmit data digitally rather than analogically.