City of Light: The Story of Fiber Optics

NOTES TO PAGES 197–202 317
three years selling the Todd-AO wide-screen movie system to theaters, an unusual
start at a time when most Harvard graduates went directly to large companies.
Larry Kahaner, On the Line: The Men of MCI—Who Took on AT&T, Risked Everything,
and Won (Warner Books, New York, 1986, pp. 47–48).
102. Ira Magaziner and Mark Patinkin, The Silent War: Inside the Global Business
Battles Shaping America’s Future (Vintage Books, New York, 1989; see chap. 9
on Corning).
103. Chaffee, The Rewiring of America. Chaffee covered the fiber industry during
its growth heyday in the 1980s, as editor of Fiber Optics News, and his account
tells the business side of the story.
104. The actual distances were 1400 kilometers for AT&T vs. 6800 kilometers
for MCI. Jeff Hecht, ‘‘Singlemode fibers go to market,’’ Lasers & Applications 2,
pp. 53–57 (May 1983).
105. Bradley, ‘‘Wobbly DC.’’
106. The cross-licenses also gave Corning access to Bell Labs technology.
While Corning held the dominant patents, it benefited from not having to battle
AT&T patents.
107. Phil Black, telephone interview, Jan. 28, 1997.
108. Magaziner and Patinkin, The Silent War (see chap. 9 on Corning).
109. The decree was dated July 27, 1981; ‘‘Corning wins patent suit against
ITT,’’ Laser Focus, Sept. 1981, pp. 104–106.
110. Black telephone interview; Randall telephone interview.
111. New York Times, July 24, 1982, p. 36; citation from New York Times Index
1982.
112. ‘‘M/A COM sells stake in Valtec to partner,’’ Wall Street Journal, Mar. 1,
1983, p. 8.
113. Dobson telephone interview.
114. Lazay interview.
115. For a more detailed account of the business side of fiber development,
especially in the 1980s, see Chaffee, The Rewiring of America.
116. Ken Nill, interview, Jan. 30, 1996.
117. Hsieh interview; Nill interview.
118. Cerny interview quoted $6 million. Others have mentioned the same
figure.
119. Hicks interview.
120. Bill Plummer, telephone interview, Mar. 21, 1997.
121. Graded-index fiber did not fade away entirely because it can carry a
billion bits per second over limited distances, a kilometer or less. It remains in use
for short systems within buildings or between buildings on a university or industrial
campus.
Chapter 15
1. Alec H. Reeves, ‘‘The future of telecommunications: Bernard Price Memorial
Lecture 1969,’’ Transactions of the South African Institute of Electrical Engineers,
Sept. 1970, p. 445–465.
2. The SE-ME-WE 3 cable, to be finished the end of 1998, spans 38,000 kilometers
(23,600 miles) and cost $1.3 billion. Adele Hars, ‘‘Suppliers selected for
world’s longest submarine cable,’’ Lightwave, May 1997, pp. 7, 9.