City of Light: The Story of Fiber Optics

274 CITY OF LIGHT
September 1978: France Telecom announces plans for fiber to the
home demonstration in Biarritz, connecting 1500
homes in early 1983.
1978: AT&T, British Post Office, and Standard Telephones
and Cables commit to developing a single-mode
transatlantic fiber cable, using the new 1.3micrometer
window, to be operational by 1988.
By the end of the year, Bell Labs abandons development
of new coaxial cables for submarine systems.
Late 1978: NTT Ibaraki lab makes single-mode fiber with record
0.2 decibel per kilometer loss at 1.55 micrometers.
January 1980: AT&T asks Federal Communications Commission to
approve Northeast Corridor system from Boston to
Washington, designed to carry three different
wavelengths through graded-index fiber at 45 million
bits per second.
February 1980: STL and British Post Office lay 9.5-kilometer submarine
cable in Loch Fyne, Scotland, including singlemode
and graded-idex fibers.
Winter 1980: Graded-index fiber system carries video signals for
1980 Winter Olympics in Lake Placid, New York,
at 850 nanometers.
September 1980: With fiber optics hot on the stock market, M/A Com
buys Valtec for $224 million in stock.
1980: Bell Labs publicly commits to single-mode 1.3micrometer
technology for the first transatlantic fiber-optic
cable, TAT-8.
July 27, 1981: ITT signs consent agreement to pay Corning and
license Corning communication fiber patents.
1981: Commercial second-generation systems emerge, operating
at 1.3 micrometers through graded-index fibers.
1981: British Telecom transmits 140 million bits per second
through 49 kilometers of single-mode fiber at 1.3
micrometers, starts shifting to single-mode.
Late 1981: Canada begins trial of fiber optics to homes in Elie,
Manitoba.
1982: British Telecom performs field trial of single-mode fiber,
abandons graded-index in favor of singlemode.
December 1982: MCI leases right of way to install single-mode fiber
from New York to Washington. The system will
operate at 400 million bits per second at 1.3 micrometers.
This starts the shift to single-mode fiber
in America.