Optic Fibre Communication

:bruary,988 OPTIC FIBRE COMMUNICATION The development of the self-supporting aerial fibre optic cables Fibrespan and Translite has opened up enormous possibilities for improving and expanding communications systems at considerably less cost and effort by relying on existing electrical grid and railway networks. The technology of fibre optics generally has been making rapid inroads into various areas of control and communi- cations, replacing or supplementing tra- ditional metal conductors and other methods. In the aircraft industry when hydraulic and mechanical linkages were replaced by electric control cables, the technology was hailed as "fly-by-wire". With the in- troduction of fibre optic cables into air- craft, the term "fly-by-light" was coined. One can only wonder how earth- bound aerial optical fibre cables will be described. The laying of subterranean trunk com- munication cables is an expensive under- taking and that of optical fibre cables is no exception. Despite their...