| These volumes are about wavelength-division multiplexing (WDM), the
most recent technology innovation in optical fiber communications. In the
past two decades, optical communications has totally changed the way we
communicate. It is a revolution that has fundamentally transformed the
core of telecommunications, its basic science, its enabling technology, and
its industry. TheWDMinnovation represents a revolution inside the optical
communications revolution, allowing the latter to continue its exponential
growth.
The existence and advance of optical fiber communications is based on
the invention of the laser, particularly the semiconductor junction laser, the
invention of low-loss optical fibers, and related disciplines, such as integrated
optics.We should never forget that it took more than 25 years from
the early, pioneering ideas to the first large-scale commercial deployment
of optical communications: the Northeast Corridor system linking Washington
with New York in 1983 and New York with Boston in 1984. This is
when the revolution got started in the marketplace, and when optical fiber
communications began seriously to impact the way information is transmitted.
The market demand for higher-capacity transmission was helped
by the fact that computers continued to become more powerful and needed
to be interconnected. This is one of the key reasons why the explosive
growth of optical fiber transmission technology parallels that of computer
processing and other key information technologies. These technologies
have combined to meet the explosive global demand for new information
services including data, Internet, and broadband services—and, most
likely, their rapid advance has helped to fuel this demand. We know that
this demand is continuing its strong growth because Internet traffic, even
by reasonably conservative estimates, keeps doubling every year. |
