 
              Fiber Optics 
 
        Written by: Celtic Phrost 
        ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 
      Sysop of Hell Phrozen Over ][ 
 
   This file is intended to help most phreaks to become more familiar with 
Telco's new switching system of the future.  In this article I will discuss 
how fiber optics is made possible and also many of its uses. 
 
   Strands of fiber optic material (usually made out of glass) are bundled in 
cables not much thicker than your thumb.  Conversations and electronic data 
ride on light pulses, instead of being carried on a stream of electricity. 
 
   Fiber-optic cables are replacing the copper cables and microwave relays 
that AT&T uses.  A single optical cable can transmit the volume of talk and 
data flowing simultaneously through 120 standard copper cables.  The new 
technology is being refined even further and Bell claims that with this new 
switching system they would be able to send the entire text of the 
Encyclopedia Britannica from one computer to another in less than 6 seconds 
(that's 50,000,000 bits/second -- fifty megabaud!).  Copper phone cables, 
which have crossed the nation since 1915, face eventual overload. 
 
   The volume of calls is increasing throughout the nation at a rate of 10 to 
12 percent annually.  There is an annual growth in computer data traffic, from 
banks and other businesses.  Video conferencing, which is now restricted to 
business related areas, will become available for public use (remember, 
Alliance was once like this . . . just think of the things you can do with 
VIDEO conferencing, heh heh!).  It will use the same telephone lines that 
voice and data transmission are used for. 
 
   Other companies are also joining the fiber optic bandwagon (MCI, U.S. 
Sprint, Allnet...etc).  Each fiber is capable of handling 178 trillion 
conversations.  (As the guy at Telco said: "That's A LOT of s***! on one strand 
of fiber!)  Even when crowded together, conversations don't stray away from 
their assigned frequencies in the thin glass or fiber strand . . . thus, 
callers have a less chance of being distracted by cross-talk or overheard 
conversations that are experienced occasionally over copper lines. 
 
   The key difference is that fiber-optic strands are coated so that light 
cannot escape sideways. 
 
   Optical cable material is so clear that light could pass through a 100 mile 
thick window of it.  Also,the modern material "defies a law of physics" by 
letting light go around corners.  Coated strands act like a reflective pipe, 
causing light to curve and twist like in the way that water flows through a 
garden hose. 
 
   How a fiber optic call is routed: 
 
   Say you are calling Los Angeles from Detroit.  Your telephone converts your 
voice into an electrical signal that arrives at a local digital switching 
point.  The electrical signal is converted there into a series of coded pulses 
or digital bits of information.  The digital bits then are converted into 
pulses of laser light shot into the optical cable. 
 
   Next the laser beam zips to a Los Angeles digital switching center, where a 
reverse process changes light pulses back into digital bits, then into an 
electrical signal that arrives at the telephone of your Los Angeles party. 
 
   Bell isn't just stopping with this, while 40 percent of their goal is to 
make everything software operated for ease.  Some of their other work 
includes: Artificial Intelligence, robotics, speech synthesis and recognition 
and also, the study of "slug" brains; to understand how neurons connect into 
networks; gallium arsenide, the material that may outdo silicon in computer 
chips; fiber optic systems that can transmit at the rate of 20 billion bits 
per second; optical computers that use the faster photons instead of 
electrons. 
 
   Fiber optics will also help to GREATLY enhance the fone line quality for 
computer data transfer.  So people will soon be able to use the regular fone 
lines for data transfer at speeds greater than 2400 baud without worrying 
about data suicide. 
 
   Well this ends this article on fiber optic switching or: LASS: Laser aided 
switching system.  I hope you learned something from it.  In my future 
articles I will discuss: PBXes, Video Conferencing, and a couple of other 
interesting things. 
 
        Written by: Celtic Phrost 
   on [Thursday July 24 1986  6:18pm] 
  For use in the P.H.I.R.M. newsletter 
 
