My simple understanding is that one of the advantages of going to fibre (light) is that you transfer things at a lot higher rate than a standard cable using the light frequency. Adjusting the light frequency, theoretically will allow more data to transfer (i.e. UV -vs- IR) per unit time.
Thinking over the frequency spectrum, I seem to recall that light is at a relatively low Hz rate as compared to the higher radio frequencies. Would it be theoretically possible to use something like radio wave frequency (say GHz RF) transmitted over copper wire to increase bandwidth between two points?
On my audio/visual receiver, I notice that I have wired RF input as well as optical input. I understand here that RF input is higher bandwidth.
Best Answer
No this is not true. Please see this question's answer on the Electronics Stack Exchange site. The frequency of the light travelling down the fibre is not relational to the speed of data transmitted as you may think. I know that question I linked is about copper but it might give you some insight. Single Mode fibre for example can run at 100Mbps, 1Gbps and 10Gbps; all at a wavelength of 1310nm. You need to look into symbol rate and encoding methods such as Manchester Encoding, 8b/10b encoding and 64b/66b encoding.
No, this is not true. The speed at which data travels down a copper cable is nearly as fast as a fibre (circa 0.6*c). The electromagnetic wave is propagating around the edge of the copper cable at a rate called the dielectric constant, which is based upon the relationship between the transmission medium (the copper) and the air and plastic coating around it. See the answer to this different question on the Electronics Stack Exchange.
Note:
As you delve deeper into the physics of electronics and light, they behave completely counter intuitively.