Advantages:

• Good information carrying capacity, which depends on bandwidth of the cable and fiber optical cable have much greater bandwidth.
• Lower loss as there is less signal attenuation over long distances.
• Fiber optical cable has lightweight and small size as compared to electrical cable.
• Optical cable does not cause interface because they do not carry the signals, which cause interference.
• Fiber optical cables cannot be tapped as easily as electrical cables.
• Fiber optical cables do not carry electricity. Therefore, there is no shock hazard.
• Fiber Optical cables are stronger than electrical cables.
• Materials required for fiber optical cables are easily available.
• They are simple in construction

Disadvantages:

1. Interfacing Costs: To be practical and useful, they must be connected to standard electronic facilities, which often require expensive interfaces.

2. Strength: Optical fibers by themselves have a significantly lower tensile strength than coaxial cable. This can be improved by coating the fiber with a protective jacket of PVC.

3. Remote electrical power: Occasionally it is necessary to provide electrical power to remote interface or regenerating equipment. This cannot be accomplished with the optical cable, so additional metallic cables must be included in the cable assembly.

4. Optical fiber cables are more susceptible to losses introduced by bending the cable: Bending the cable causes irregularities in the cable dimensions, resulting in a loss of signal power.

5. Specialized tools, equipment and training: Optical fiber cables require special tools to splice and repair cables and special test equipment to make routine measurements. Sometimes it is difficult to locate faults in optical cables because there is no electrical continuity.