City of Light: The Story of Fiber Optics

NOTES TO PAGES 220–223 321
March 79 (Visual Information System Development Association, MITI, Tokyo,
1979); see also other sources, such as Masahiro Kawahata, ‘‘Hi-OVIS,’’ Dutton et
al., Wired Cities (pp. 179–200).
14. ‘‘The fibered city as social laboratory: a progress report on Japan’s Hi-
OVIS,’’ Laser Focus, Jan. 1980, pp. 58–60.
15. Jeff Hecht, talk delivered at the 1980 Newport Conference on Fiber-Optic
Markets, Kessler Marketing Intelligence, Newport, R. I.; Jeff Hecht, ‘‘Marketing
broad band services,’’ Laser Focus, Dec. 1980, p. 6.
16. Masahiro Kawahata, e-mail to author, Apr. 10, 1997.
17. ‘‘The fibered city.’’
18. Masahiro Kawakata, e-mail to author, Apr. 10, 1997
19. Quote from Tetsuhiko Ikegama, senior vice president, NTT, talk delivered
at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Apr. 14, 1994. Like most NTT accounts
of fiber-optic development in Japan, Ikegama’s talk did not mention Hi-
OVIS by name, although he did praise MITI’s early work. I have seen other NTT
reports in which the omission of Hi-OVIS was much more striking.
20. Letter from Akiko Kato, NTT PR Dept., Dec. 5, 1997. Stringing fiber to
distribution nodes near homes by the earlier date is much less expensive than
stringing fiber directly to all homes and businesses. NTT evidently plans to run
fiber links to individual homes as requested or needed.
21. Canada earlier laid fibers to 40 homes in the exclusive Yorkville district of
Toronto, but the local cable-television system blocked tests of video services. The
Manitoba Telephone System had rights to offer cable television in Elie and Ste.
Eustache, so video tests could proceed there P. H. Chouinard, M. Larose,
F. M. Banks, and J. R. Berry, ‘‘Description and performance review of the Yorkville
integrated services fiber optic trial,’’ paper 28.3 in International Conference on
Communications, 1979, Boston, Mass (IEEE Conference Digest, Piscataway, N.J.,
1979).
22. Figures are in US dollars; the budget was $9.5 million Canadian. Brian B.
McCallum, ‘‘Fiber optic subscriber loops: a look at the Elie system,’’ Laser Focus,
Nov. 1980, pp. 64–67.
23. Jeff Hecht, ‘‘Fiberopolis,’’ Omni, Dec. 1982, pp. 120–128.
24. Rod Kachulak, telephone interview, Mar. 3, 1997.
25. Joel Stratte-McClure, ‘‘French telecommunications,’’ advertising supplement
to Scientific American, Sept. 1980.
26. Michel Triboullet, telephone interview, Feb. 13, 1997.
27. ‘‘Biarritz optical fiber system,’’ paper circa 1980, from France, not specifically
attributed.
28. ‘‘Postdeadline reports,’’ Laser Focus, Dec. 1980, p. 4.
29. ‘‘Postdeadline reports.’’
30. William H. Dutton, ‘‘Driving into the future of communications? Check
the rear-view mirror,’’ paper presented at ‘‘POTS to PANS, social issues in the
multimedia evolution from plain old telephony services to Picture and Network
Services,’’ Mar. 28–30, 1994, Hintlesham, Suffolk, UK (paper available via World
Wide Web).
31. Thierry Vedel, ‘‘Local policies for wiring France,’’ in Dutton et al., Wired
Cities (pp. 255–278).
32. E.g., at the September 1979 European Conference on Optical Communications
in Amsterdam, there were 36 Japanese papers, 17 each from Britain and
the United States, 12 from Germany, and a mere 6 from France. See Charles