A Brief History of Fibre Optics

These days, we are so used to enhanced speeds offered by fibre optic cabling that it can be easy to forget the days before the technology was widely used, the days of dial up internet and the funny tone it used to make. Oh, how far we’ve come. In this article, we offer a brief history of the fibre optic technology that has given us on demand almost instant access to so many things.

Back in 1854, a British Physicist named John Tyndall proved that a light signal could be bent, by demonstrating that light follows the arc of a pouring stream of water. In his experiment, he set up a tank of water with a pipe running out of one side. He shone a light into the tank as the water flowed from the pipe and an arc of light followed the water down as it fell. This simple principle led to a further study of this phenomenon as well as developments for its application.

In 1926, the idea of using transparent rods to carry light for the transmission of images for television was patented by John Logie Baird. However, at this time the optical losses which were unfortunately inherent in the materials used rendered it impractical for use. Over time further research and development into transmission of images through fibre optics led to some success in the 1950’s, particularly in medicine with early fibrescopes. 

The transmission of information over glass fibre was proposed by George Hockham and Charles Kao in 1966. They concluded that for it to be viable there needed to be much lower losses in the cables. Fibre had losses of around 100db/km in 1968 and it was thought that it could be used for telecommunications if the losses could be reduced by 80%, to 20db/km. This led to developments in fibre manufacturing that focused on improving optical losses. Corning Glass have been credited for manufacturing the first fibre with a 20db/km loss in 1970. 

This was the start of something big, from there, telecommunications engineers and scientists undertook further research and development into these optical fibres. The late 1970’s saw groundbreaking work at the British Telecom laboratories in Martlesham that led to the creation of glass fibre pure enough to support the full development of the technology’s potential. 

Today, fibre optic technology is used in a variety of applications by many different industries, including telecommunications, the military, medicine, broadcasting and industrial.

Timeline of key developments

1978:

The first fibre optic cable system which went on to to form part of the public telephone network, in Europe, was installed between Ipswich telephone exchange and Martlesham’s Post Office Research Centre.

The first operational fibre link in the UK came into service. This mere 9km of cabling connected Brownhills and Walsall in the West Midlands.

In Loch Fyne in Scotland the very first purpose-designed optical fibre submarine cable was laid.

1982:

In another pioneering development the longest fibre optic telephone cable in the world came into service between London and Birmingham.

1984:

The first 140Mbps single mode fibre optics system in the world came into use between Milton Keynes and Luton.

1985:

The first operational undersea optical fibre in the UK was laid across the Solent, linking the mainland to the Isle of Wight.

1986:

The first international undersea optical fibre link was opened, linking the UK and Belgium.

1988:

The City Fibre Network which was the first fibre optic network in the UK was opened by BT chairman Iain Vallance in London on the 27^th January.

On March 28^th, an undersea fibre optic link to the Isle of Man was inaugurated. This was the longest un-regenerated system in Europe.

TAT 8, The very first transoceanic optical fibre cable in the world was laid between Tuckerton, New Jersey, USA and Widemouth Bay, Britain via Penmarch, France and came into service. With a capacity of 280Mbps. It was capable of carrying 40,000 telephone channels simultaneously, TAT 8.

1992:

TAT 9, a new transatlantic optical fibre cable came into service. It linked the US, Canada, UK, France and Spain. At 9,000km in length, with a capacity of 560Mbps, TAT 9 was capable of doubling the amount of simultaneous telephone channels of TAT 8, with 80,000. Around the same time, the TAT 10 transatlantic cable was also laid, which connected the USA, Germany and Holland.

1999:

It was announced by BT that it had pushed commercial optical fibre transmission to 80Gbps.

2003:

The Total transatlantic transmission capacity in use has now reached 2700 gigabits per second, this is a massive 5000 times that of TAT-8. The total potential capacity at this time hit 12,300 gigabits per second.