Chronicles of light – How the story of connection began

Where did it all start?

The history of fiber optics is as surprising as the technology itself. Although today we associate it with the Internet and global connectivity, its origins go back to scientific experiments in the 19th century.

It all began with the curiosity of pioneers. The original idea of guiding light is attributed to Daniel Colladon and Jacques Babinet in Paris in 1840, long before fiber was used in telecommunications. Decades later, a visionary step marked history: the first man to transmit his voice through a beam of light was Alexander Graham Bell in 1880 with his “photophone,” a conceptual precursor of fiber optics.

The first practical uses had nothing to do with the Internet or phone calls. In fact, the first applications of fiber optics were medical, not telecommunications—used in endoscopies to observe the inside of the human body. Even before entering homes, fiber was already key in scientific and military applications, transmitting signals securely.

The big leap came in 1988: the first transatlantic fiber-optic telephone cable (TAT-8) was installed, with capacity for 40,000 simultaneous conversations, a milestone that opened a new era. And progress didn’t stop there: the world record for fiber data transmission now exceeds 1 petabit per second, while Japan and South Korea remain among the countries with the highest FTTH penetration. More recently, the COVID-19 pandemic dramatically accelerated the deployment of FTTH networks, making this infrastructure essential for telework and online education.

Fiber is also an example of precision engineering: it is manufactured from silicon, the second most abundant element in the Earth’s crust, and the glass preform from which fiber is drawn can take hundreds of hours to produce. Another fascinating fact: fiber-optic submarine cables installed in the late 20th century are still in operation decades later, carrying a significant share of global Internet traffic.

Conclusion
From a laboratory experiment in 1840 to sustaining today’s global network, the history of fiber optics shows how a brilliant idea can become indispensable infrastructure.

👉 Coming up next: The secret journey of light inside the fiber.