Was in healthcare IT as well: https://www.fs.com/products/41028.html?attribute=35025&id=61... for a couple of dollars you can get 2 paths of crush protected bend insensitive high speed fiber that barely degrades signal quality when you knot it up. To get around the limitations of the LC connector and wall jacks being regularly obliterated by equipment/tables being moved around use recessed jacks, that way they just pass by instead of break the connector (applies to rj45 as well). We had great success with this approach for a couple thousand locations.

Of course, the real problem 95% of the time is really around the device not the technology the device uses. There is a misalignment of incentives on who can work on the device, whether standard parts are used, and whether the approved parts are the $2 type solution that will cost $800 in on site contractor fees to replace again or the $4 solution which actually stands a chance to being used. Once the device is bought nobody is going to be incented or allowed to do anything but fix it to status quo. It's one reason I had to get out of healthcare IT - it was more often the system getting in the way of what patients and nurses needed to do than the actual technology itself so solving things from a technology perspective felt like running on a treadmill and going nowhere.

I'd go like: "third time, I'm wrapping it in a kiddy pool noodle" for their embarassment

The most common use cases for the kind of long range high bandwidth connectivity that fiber is good for are networking and displays, neither of which typically carry power in consumer use cases. USB cannot be replaced by a purely optical connection, but Ethernet and DisplayPort certainly can, and tunneling USB alongside DisplayPort to split back out at the monitor doesn't present any power delivery challenges.

Most GPON is quite thin. Thinner and tougher than standard fiber patch cables.

I don't know if this is a helpful comparison for you, but my FTTH cable is almost identical size and material-wise to Apple EarPods cable. Has been working fine for years now, though obviously I don't move the router that much.

G.657B standard cables have a pulling (stress) bend radius of 5mm. So, you can abuse it quite a bit and it's fine. Also, while it is abused during installation, at rest, it is not under so much stress and usually have a sturdy casing to make sure it stays above its min bend radius.

8m or so is the limit for HDMI passive cables being 100% reliable.

If you want to go 15-30m--- using a video source from another part of your house, or to drive a projector in the middle of a classroom--- and you buy an "active cable", odds are it's fiber optic inside.

If you want to go hundreds of meters away, you'll get a purpose-built box that uses your own optical cables instead of a cable that hides the optical transceivers inside.

Those are used in multiple cases:

- long runs that are not that long. hdmi does not like long cables at all. even an overhead projector in a classroom requires super expensive cables (ever wondered why it's still mostly vga?)

- packing multiple displays in a single cable. fiber is so thin that with trunk cables you get a lot of strands in a single cable, capable of running a lot of displays

- just getting a really thin cable that can be run in existing conduits or hard to reach places

I did buy such a cable for home for the third reason, to run from the PC in the office to the TV in the living room. It runs on a bog standard OM3 MPO cable. The specific one I got comes from HeyOptics and their website already showcases a few usecases [1]. (not affiliated, just a great product that just works)

As for stadiums and more generally broadcast video, they're using SDI instead of HDMI. Those are indeed most of the time fiber, both for range and weight (think of the cameraman running along the terrain during a sport event, and their long tail of cables). When they use HDMI it's more in the control room.

[1]: https://www.heyoptics.net/products/8k-hdmi-mpo-optical-cable

(edit: fixed list formatting, I always forget this is not markdown)

I have a 50 foot fiber HDMI cable to get 4k/120hz signal from the PC in my home office to the TV in the living room. Works great!

Copper thunderbolt cables are only good for 2-3m, after which you need active cables or repeaters and fiber is easily the best option at that point.

HDMI and DisplayPort are good for a bit longer than Thunderbolt over copper, but not by all that much. HDMI 2.1 can only go to around 3m as well now.

So we're in a world where "long" is a mere 5 meters / 15 feet. This is why so many VR headsets are using fiber cables - it has to be long to enable the movement and logistics of connecting a PC to someone freestanding in a room, but modern video signals are just too hard to drive over copper at that not really that long distances.