City of Light: The Story of Fiber Optics

308 NOTES TO PAGES 163–166
broadcast television. However, many details are off, such as his prediction of submarine
cables made with graded-index fiber and two-kilometer repeater spacing.
Alec Reeves, ‘‘The future of telecommunications: Bernard Price Memorial Lecture
1969,’’ Transactions of the South African Institute of Electrical Engineers (Sept. 1970,
pp. 445–465. This is the transcript of a lecture given Sept. 29–Oct. 1, 1969 in
South Africa. See also Alec Reeves, ‘‘Future prospects in optical communications,’’
John Logie Baird Memorial Lecture, University of Strathclyde, May 30, 1969.
18. ‘‘Alec Reeves dies.’’
19. John Midwinter, interview, Dec. 5, 1994.
20. Electronic circuits long ago replaced electro-mechanical relays in telephone
switching systems. You can think of telephone switches as special-purpose computers.
Vacuum-tube electronics were used in some early general-purpose computers,
but complex general-purpose computers were not possible until the advent
of transistors and integrated circuits. The same was true for the special-purpose
computers used in telephone switching. Digital telephone transmission also requires
fast, inexpensive circuits to convert signals back and forth between digital
and analog formats, and those also require transistors and integrated circuits to
be practical.
21. William A. Gambling, ‘‘Fibres, lasers, and communications,’’ The Radio and
Electronic Engineer 43, No. 11, pp. 653–654 (Nov. 1973).
22. Martin Chown et al., ‘‘Direct modulation of double-heterostructure lasers
at rates up to 1 Gbit/s,’’ Electronics Letters 9, No. 2, pp. 34–36 (Jan. 25, 1973).
23. Ira Jacobs, ‘‘Lightwave system development: looking back and ahead,’’
Optics & Photonics News, Feb. 1995, pp. 19–23, 39.
24. Laurence Altman, ‘‘Bell’s money is riding on millimeter waves for future
communications,’’ Electronics, Apr. 13, 1970, pp. 96–105; the bit rates are not
exact multiples because each level of multiplexing adds overhead bits.
25. Jack A. Baird, ‘‘The Picturephone system: forward,’’ Bell System Technical
Journal 50, No. 2, pp. 219–220 (Feb. 1971), says the first public demonstration
of ‘‘two-way video telephony’’ was by Bell Labs in New York on Apr. 9, 1930.
While Jenkins and others were trying to broadcast television, Herbert Ives at Bell
Labs was thinking of two-way video communication. There was a similar haziness
of purpose among early radio developers, many of whom envisioned using radio
for two-way conversations.
26. Irwin Dorros, ‘‘The Picturephone system: the network,’’ Bell System Technical
Journal 50, No. 2, pp. 221–233 (Feb. 71).
27. Donald Janson, ‘‘Picture-Telephone service is started in Pittsburgh,’’ New
York Times, July 1, 1970, p. 1.
28. Boyce Rensenberger, ‘‘Growth of Picturephones disappoints Bell System,’’
New York Times, July 3, 1970, p. 26. This article said that the number of Picturephones
had increased from an initial 25 to 33 a year later. The discrepancy
with the report a year earlier was unnoticed.
29. Altman, ‘‘Bell’s money.’’
30. Gloge, ‘‘Optical waveguide transmission.’’
31. Stewart E. Miller, ‘‘Optical communications research progress,’’ Science
170, pp. 685–695 (Nov. 13, 1970).
32. I searched both indexes and also those of specialist magazines such as
Electronics and Laser Focus. Industrial Research wrote about research at STL and
the British Post Office in January 1971 issue, mentioning the diode laser as a
milestone but overlooking Corning’s fiber and Bell’s interest in communications.