City of Light: The Story of Fiber Optics

A VISION OF THE FUTURE 85
Engineers call that technique pulse code modulation, and today it’s the
standard way to transmit digitized voice and video signals around the world.
Yet when Reeves filed his patent application, the state of the telephone art
was big black Bakelite phones with rotary dials, connected by clattering mechanical
switches and banks of switchboards into which operators plugged
wires by hand. The first transistor was a decade in the future; the vacuumtube
electronics of the time were too slow to make Reeves’s idea work. ITT
never collected a penny in royalties on his patent, but they recognized his
genius.
Reeves’s colleagues fondly remember him as unfailingly open and honest,
even ‘‘saintly.’’ 21 He served as a scoutmaster, worked for charities, and tried
to help delinquent boys. He also was eccentric. He worked from midday to 3
A.M., often in a spare bedroom that served as a home laboratory, and would
call co-workers at 2 A.M. to share his bright ideas. He sometimes appeared at
work wearing a tie in place of a belt, and a crocodile clip—used to clamp
electronic wires together temporarily—as a tie clasp. 22 In his spare time, he
experimented with the paranormal, trying to understand dowsing, mental
telepathy, and psychokinesis. 23 He was not a true believer, but his restless
mind liked to explore unconventional ideas.
Invading German troops chased Reeves from Paris in 1940. Back in England
he was slow to embrace war work, but eventually devised the Oboe
radar system, the most precise tool for guiding Allied bombers to their targets.
24 After the war, ITT moved him to its new Standard Telecommunication
Laboratories, a subsidiary of Standard Telephones and Cables. At STL, Reeves
developed a family of semiconductor devices, later eclipsed by transistors, 25
and remained heavily involved in military systems. He also looked to the
future of civilian communications.
The Pipe Dream
By 1950, the telecommunications establishment thought the next logical step
was to use microwave frequencies above 10 gigahertz, called millimeter waves
because their waves are millimeters long. Wires were the local streets serving
home and office phones; coaxial cables and microwaves were the main roads
linking local telephone switching offices in urban areas. But long-distance
traffic was growing steadily, and the industry wanted to replace its aging
microwave relays with a higher-capacity intercity backbone network, like
America wanted high-speed interstate highways to carry trucks and cars
across the country. Multiplying the carrier frequency by a factor of 10 promised
the extra communications capacity, as well as beams that could be focused
more tightly toward relay receivers.
Unfortunately, the shorter the wavelength, the more often weather gets in
the way. Radio waves an inch or more long don’t see clouds, rain, and fog,
but water droplets can block millimeter waves. That wouldn’t work for phone
companies; their customers don’t want to wait until the rain stops to call