Optical Fibre History
How the fibre communications revolution began

KaoPark

All the original buildings have been demolished and the site cleared for the development of KaoPark.

Time-lapse video of the site demolition and development

The site retains the two most recent lab buildings (M and V) which were built during the Nortel era.

It will provide four large Data Centres, key network nodes in the World Wide Web.
These will be interconnected (appropriately) by very high-speed optical fibre cables.

For further information on KaoPark: Contact

My Flickr images of the transformation:

2016: Half a Century of Optical Fibre Communications

2016 was the 50th anniversary of the publication that started it all.

Optical Fibre has transformed our world yet is now almost completely ignored.

The reasons?:

  • It is largely hidden (beneath our streets and oceans).
  • No surviving commercial organisation has an interest in promoting the STL history.
  • Few remember just how poor global communications used to be.

Useful Links

For anyone who enjoyed STL

STL Quarter Century Club

For the full story of optical communication see

"City of Light - The Story of Fiber Optics" by Jeff Hecht

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Designed by Richard Epworth.