Company that keeps reinventing itself as a manufacturer

I spent many hours with that day, and I was delighted by his wry sense of humor and somewhat goofy smile; he had first worked in Corning’s Brazilian regional office as an optical communications specialist and had transferred to upstate New York about 15 years earlier. I could see that he loved his job.

 He’s helping to run the enormous centralized research lab—the Bell Labs of our era—for a company that keeps reinventing itself as a manufacturer and annually invests about 10 percent of its revenue, no matter what, in research and development.
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Susan Crawford is the John A. Reilly Clinical Professor of Law at Harvard Law School, a columnist for WIRED, and author of the 2013 book Captive Audience. Crawford served as Special Assistant to the President for Science, Technology, and Innovation Policy (2009) and co-led the FCC transition team between the Bush and Obama administrations.

Mazzali brought me a cup of steaming coffee; as I drank, he said emphatically: “When you think about glass, some people say, ‘Oh, I get sand, and I melt that, and then I make glass.’ Of course it’s much more sophisticated than that for optical fiber. It’s totally different.”

Central Tube Unarmored Optical Cables

Overview

Indoor/Outdoor type installation. Designed for indoor/outdoor applications to protect optical fiber for the unexpected mechanical and environmental conditions. Qualification and acceptance testing are performed to assure the optical cable’s performance and durability in several environments.
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Applications

Building interconnection. Campus and Local Area Network.

Highlights

Fiber counts up to 12
Light weight
High tensile strength design
Dry core design
Small diameter
Colored fiber for the quick identification
UV resistance for the outer sheath
Fully complies with international standards, TIA/EIA

For municipalities to qualify for these grants

For municipalities to qualify for these grants that have to fit certain criteria. Criteria vary from state to state, as does the definition of broadband. When we talk about “defining broadband” we don’t mean a dictionary definition. What we are referring to is a minimum internet speed, defined by FCC and/or state government.

This definition is a moving target right now, in January 2018 the FCC decided to keep their 2016 definition of broadband, leaving it at 25/3 Mbps. That does not mean every state’s broadband definition is 25/3 Mbps, in fact, some states have multiple definitions with the option to change them when needed. To qualify for any government funding though, a community has to have speeds that fall under a broadband definition.
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An ISP receiving any government funding has to build to the definition, though some grants have a specific build to definition. The build to definition means there are specific speeds an ISP’s new infrastructure has to meet. If those speeds are asymmetrical, such as 10/10, that ISP will have to build fiber.

Another element of governments increased interest in broadband infrastructure is policy related. There are currently twenty states with laws that prohibit municipalities from building their own broadband network. Many of these state laws were lobbied into action by large telecom corporations. Under these laws, rural towns that don’t appeal to ISPs have no options when it comes to broadband infrastructure.

Town Hall Sign on Building Facade

Broadband is an important tool for government, big and small.

Societal Benefits
E-Government & Civic Participation: What makes government work as it should is transparency and public engagement. Access to reliable, high-speed Internet allows live streaming of municipal, state and federal proceedings – either in real time or more importantly on demand. Government websites and social media provide a continuous stream of information to the public as well as forums for public participation.

Citizens can pay taxes online, register vehicles, procure hunting, fishing, and pet licenses, and with the click of a button, communicate via email with elected officials and staff. Many government entities have employed a messaging system that allows citizens to use any smart device to alert officials about everything from dangerous potholes to emergency situations they might witness.
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Public Safety: Chapter 16 on The National Broadband Plan addresses the importance of broadband to public safety. The plan suggests that:

“Broadband can help public safety personnel prevent emergencies and respond swiftly when they occur. Broadband can also provide the public with new ways of calling for help and receiving emergency information.”

These two parts work together to create a phenomenon

These two parts work together to create a phenomenon called total internal reflection. Total internal reflection is how light is able to move down the fibers, without escaping. It is when the light hits the glass at an extremely shallow angle, less than 42 degrees, and reflects back again as if reflecting against a mirror.

The cladding keeps the light in the core because the glass/plastic it is made of has a different optical density or lower refractive index. Both these terms refer to how the glass bends (refraction)and therefore slows down the light.
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Light is transmitted down the fiber in LED or Laser pulses that travel extremely fast. These pulses carry binary data, which is a coding system that makes up everything we see on the Internet, even the words you are reading right now. Binary code is made up of bits, which are just ones and zeroes. These bits send messages in organized eight-part patterns, called bytes.

It is easy to translate the bits of binary into light pulses. One pulse means one and no pulse means zero. These pulses can travel sixty miles before they experience any degradation. To transport data across thousands of miles these pulses go through optical amplifiers that boost their signal so that no data is lost.

Fiber optic cable is used to connect one electronic or optical device

Fiber optic cable is used to connect one electronic or optical device to another for signal routing. It transmits S/PDIF digital audio information in optical form (red light). Multimode cable is suitable for most general bi-directional fiber optic applications, such as installing and extending desktop network connections. Single-mode cable has a tight buffer that helps protect the cable's individual fibers when used in long runs.

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A study provides new evidence that the same optical fibers that deliver high-speed internet and HD video to our homes could one day double as earthquake monitors.
Fiber-optic cables are the backbone of modern telecommunications, and we have demonstrated that we can turn existing networks into extensive seismic arrays to assess ground motions during earthquakes,” says first author Zack Spica, an assistant professor in the earth and environmental sciences department at the University of Michigan.

UNDERGROUND EARTHQUAKE SENSOR SYSTEM
Researchers conducted the study using a prototype array at Stanford University, where Spica was a postdoctoral fellow for several years.

“This is the first time that fiber-optic seismology has been used to derive a standard measure of subsurface properties that is used by earthquake engineers to anticipate the severity of shaking,” says coauthor Greg Beroza, professor in Stanford University’s School of Earth, Energy & Environmental Sciences.


To transform a fiber-optic cable into a seismic sensor, the researchers connect an instrument called a laser interrogator to one end of the cable. It shoots pulses of laser light down the fiber. The light bounces back when it encounters impurities along the fiber, creating a “backscatter signal” that is analyzed by a device called an interferometer.

Core - Thin glass center of the fiber where the light travels

Core - Thin glass center of the fiber where the light travels
Cladding - Outer optical material surrounding the core that reflects the light back into the core
Buffer coating - Plastic coating that protects the fiber from damage and moisture
Hundreds or thousands of these optical fibers are arranged in bundles in optical cables. The bundles are protected by the cable's outer covering, called a jacket.

Optical fibers come in two types:

Single-mode fibers
Multi-mode fibers
See Tpub.com: Mode Theory for a good explanation.
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Single-mode fibers have small cores (about 3.5 x 10-4 inches or 9 microns in diameter) and transmit infrared laser light (wavelength = 1,300 to 1,550 nanometers). Multi-mode fibers have larger cores (about 2.5 x 10-3 inches or 62.5 microns in diameter) and transmit infrared light (wavelength = 850 to 1,300 nm) from light-emitting diodes (LEDs).

Some optical fibers can be made from plastic. These fibers have a large core (0.04 inches or 1 mm diameter) and transmit visible red light (wavelength = 650 nm) from LEDs.

Let's look at how an optical fiber works.