Optical fibres were invented by the USA's Bell Telephone Laboratories. They were first used to carry telephone calls as far back as 1978. It is very hard to overstate the importance of this technology. These human hair-sized glass pipes have a stupendous capacity for carrying information. A single pair of fibres can carry the equivalent of 37,000 simultaneous telephone conversations, or 800 compressed video channels. In practice, few cables contain just a single pair. The Pentel pen sized cables now being laid in our streets contain at least four fibre pairs, a massive capacity. What's more, fibre optic cables are surprisingly cheap to build and lay. It's been argued that the cost-saving benefits of optic cables are so great that 95% of the cost of a transcontinental Sydney-Perth phone call is not in sending the signal 3000Kms across the continent via an optic fibre, but in the switching associated with the exchanges at either end. In other words, long distance calls don't actually cost the phone companies much more than local calls. Why the cost to the consumer doesn't yet reflect that reality is another story . Australia already has a well developed fibre optic network. The initial roll-out was concentrated on the distance routes. The major cities were connected first, and now the optic cables form a network reaching most rural centres as well. Travellers in Australia will be familiar with the microwave towers every 50Km or so along the highways. The bulk of these are now silent, replaced