Building the Global Fiber Optics Superhighway

A re-working of C.D. Chaffee's previously published The Rewiring of America (Academia, 1988), this professional book describes the fiber optics revolution. There have been many changes in the fiber optics field since the book's first publication. These include advances in optical networking; the additional bandwidth created by the Internet and associated data services; liberalization of the global telecommunications industry; and the rewiring of the world's oceans with fiber optics. Building the Global Fiber Optics Superhighway details all these developments. C.D. Chaffee writes: `One thing is clear: as our networks become primarily data-driven, they need to be built differently, to be able to handle data first, but also voice. It is a different way of looking at the world.'

The Oceans as Superhighway.- A Global Footprint.- The Business of Ocean Fiber.- North America.- The Rerewiring of America.- Fiber Sprouts in Mexico.- The Canadian Presence.- Bandwidth as Precious Commodity.- The Far East.- Japan’s Twenty-First Century Infocommunications Superhighway.- The Competition Down Under.- China Comes up Huge.- Europe.- Deregulation Shakes the Continent.- The U.K. Testbed.- Deutsche Telekom: Fibering the East, Fighting Competition.- France Adjusts—At Times Painfully.- South America.- A Continent Demanding to Keep up.- An Enlightened Global Community.- Instantaneous Global Communications.