FIBER OPTICS TO THE FORE

The prospect of widespread installation of fiber-optics systems was exhilarating. In the United States, railroad rights-of-way offered convenient paths for long-distance fiber cables, which were so robust that even the strong vibrations of heavy trains did not disturb them. Work proceeded slowly at first. In 1978, the total of all fiber-optic installations in the world came to only 600 miles. In 1980, AT&T filed plans with the Federal Communications Commission for a 611-mile system that would connect major cities in the Boston-Washington corridor. Four years later, when the system entered service, its cable, less than 1 inch across, provided 80,000 voice channels for simultaneous telephone conversations. By then, the total length of fiber cables in the United States alone approached 250,000 miles--enough to stretch to the moon.

Similar cables soon spanned the world's oceans. The first transatlantic cable entered service in 1988, using glass so transparent that its amplifiers for regenerating weak signals could be spaced more than 40 miles apart. Three years later, another transatlantic cable doubled the capacity of the first one. Transpacific cables have also come into use, offering easy telephone service for the burgeoning United States trade with Asia.

September 1, 2011

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