"The answer is yes, they can — but only when certain safety and technical guidelines are followed. " "Fiber optic cables are different from copper wires. They transmit light, not electrical signals, which means they are completely immune to electromagnetic interference, or EMI. The optical fiber elements are typically individually coated with plastic layers and contained in a protective tube. For monitoring and managing networks, they use a variety of means of communications, including running fiber optic cables along the transmission and distribution towers, radio links and contracting landline and cellular communications services from telecom carriers. The two can be installed side by side without any significant. The existing 2" conduit contains 4x 1/0 XLPE cable (rated for direct-burial), so I plan on pulling outdoor rated, non-metallic fiber through the same conduit. My original plan was to trench new conduit and run CAT8, but given that the existing run is all "customer side" and installed by the former. A optical cable is is a kind of communication cable that is used to realize optical signal transmission. It's composed of several parts such as the cable core, reinforced steel wire or other strength member, filler and sheath.