The Light Fantastic Listen to a discussion of this story. The Lucent fiber could transmit three times the daily global Internet traffic every second. However, experts say the Bell Labs breakthrough is just the beginning. In a matter of years, the fiber-optic cable being laid today by telecoms across the globe could be transmitting data at a rate of tens of thousands of terabits per second. At these speeds, the entire written works of mankind could be beamed across the globe at the speed of light in just a few seconds.
Optical fiber is made from a silica fiber stretched thinner than human hair.
Information is beamed across it by lasers operating in the near-infrared range of the light spectrum. More than 215 million kilometers of optical fiber has been laid across the globe, more than enough to stretch to the moon and back nearly 280 times. Meanwhile, the number of wavelengths, or colors, a single fiber can simultaneously carry is doubling every year. At the moment, optical networks carry 40 wavelengths per fiber, Nagel said. Eighty-wavelength systems are already available, and 160 wavelength systems will be introduced next year.