Fiber Optic Networks: Connect communities

Fiber optic technology advanced at an astonishing rate in the second half of the twentieth century. The discovery of fiber optics in 1966 was indeed a major landmark for which Charles Kao won a share of the Nobel Prize in physics in 2009. Working at the Old Standard Telecommunications Laboratories in the United Kingdome, Kao coauthored a paper with G. A. Hockham in 1966 on the subject of the theory and practice of the use of optical fiber for communications applications.

In this paper, for the first time, they described how to transmit light over long distances using ultrapure optical glass fibers which enabled such transmissions to reach 62 miles. As a result of this discovery, the first ultrapure fiber was produced in 1970...