JOHN EDWARDS OPTICAL EVOLUTION
PAST, PRESENT, AND THE ROAD AHEAD THREE DECADES OF OPTICAL COMMUNICATIONS EVOLUTION:
Just thirty years ago, optical communications were still largely the preserve of long-haul networks and some highly specific enterprise, academic, and military applications. Users were concentrated in universities, large corporations, and a handful of technology-forward government bodies. In 1995, broadband penetration in the UK, Europe and the USA was minimal. Who remembers those state-of-the-art dial-up modems that offered kilobits per second connection speeds? However, several developments turned optical communications from niche to necessity writes Telecoms Expert, John Edwards.
U ptake of the World Wide Web increased as people discovered this new platform for information, business, governance, and entertainment. It soon became clear that at some point legacy telecom infrastructure would no longer suffice—although opinions on exactly WHEN have always differed strongly. Equipment costs gradually dropped, making it possible to start replacing digital subscriber lines (DSL) and coaxial cable with optical connections. (However, last-mile copper is proving extremely resilient – even though it cannot match optical networks’ symmetrical speeds, low latency, or upgrade potential, and consumes significantly more power per bit). By the early 2000s, broadband adoption was climbing sharply. Wave Division Multiplexing allowed multiple wavelengths (channels) of light to travel down the same fibre - capacity could be multiplied without laying new cables. Carrying fast-growing internet traffic alongside existing voice/video traffic on the same infrastructure became cost-effective. Erbium-doped fibre amplifiers (EDFAs) boosting optical signals directly in the fibre could replace expensive opto-electronic regenerators. This reduced equipment, power, and maintenance costs for long- haul networks — an important factor in bringing affordable internet access to households and businesses. Ever- improving cable designs further reduced attenuation and improved signal quality. Government policy initiatives in Europe, the UK and the US encouraged competition and infrastructure investment. In Nordic countries, several municipalities decided to build open- access fibre networks and offer residents an opportunity to work out for themselves what fast internet connections might bring
them. This sidestepped a familiar cause of delays in many markets: the “Let’s wait for the telecom incumbents to invest” approach. In the US, penetration rose from less than 5% in 2000 to over 60% by 2010; EU averages followed a similar curve. The UK mirrored US and EU broadband trends in the early 21st century—albeit with a bit of a lag. The UK caught up with the EU and US penetration curve between the late 2000s and early 2010s. BROADBAND DIVIDEND The spread of optical-backbone networks brought measurable socio-economic gains. Studies in different regions correlate broadband availability with GDP growth, increased employment in digital sectors, and higher productivity across industries. Faster networks enabled e-commerce, remote services, and globalised supply chains. Online learning and research became more accessible. Telemedicine proved particularly valuable for rural and underserved areas. Platforms for communication, collaboration, and streaming entertainment expanded. As bandwidth demands grew, scalable, low- latency, high-throughput connections became increasingly critical. Fibre to the Home (FTTH) deployments accelerated, for residential users and as backhaul capacity to serve data centres’ massive, symmetrical bandwidth needs. Of course, not every community has enjoyed broadband’s benefits. Rural or remote areas often lack coverage due to high deployment costs, low population density, or lack of supporting infrastructure. Even if they are connected, slow speeds, high latency, or unreliable services may limit participation in the digital economy. Fortunately, optical technology improvements can shrink the digital divide and make internet access more equitable by lowering infrastructure costs, extending high-speed connectivity
into rural and low-income regions, and enabling sustainable, reliable service models. New optical amplifiers and low- attenuation fibre allow longer spans between repeaters, reducing the infrastructure needed in hard-to-reach regions. More compact, cost-effective optical network terminals (ONTs) and passive optical networks (PON) make it possible to roll out gigabit connections without massive active equipment in the field. New designs resistant to environmental degradation help maintain high service quality in rural climates, reducing outages that disproportionately affect underserved communities. CATALYSTS FOR THE NEXT WAVE The first optical uptake boom was driven by converging technologies, and in more recent times, we are seeing something similar happening. As end- users and developers need more and more bandwidth, optical technology developments are ensuring networks can keep up—without overspecifying or overspending. 5G mobile networks, for example, now require dense, high-capacity fibre backhaul to meet low-latency requirements. Mobile and fixed networks have become interdependent, with fibre providing the backbone for wireless innovation. Wi-Fi 6 and Wi-Fi 7 can only deliver multi-gigabit speeds when paired with robust fibre-fed infrastructure. Artificial Intelligence applications demand both massive data movement and edge- compute capabilities, again underpinned by optical networks. Several breakthroughs in recent decades have made optical networks even more economical and efficient. Dense Wavelength Division Multiplexing (DWDM) increases fibre capacity without laying new cables. Passive Optical
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| ISSUE 42 | Q3 2025
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