Glass: The Carrier Of Light - A Brief History Of Optical Fibre

All voice and data communications employ silica glass optical fibre at some point in their early instantaneous transmission. This is enabled globally by the annual production of over 180m kilometres of optical fibre. Since the first low-loss fibre installations, nearly 2 billion kilometres have been manufactured, which is enough to connect the Earth with Jupiter. Given such a rare combination of ubiquity and utility, this article reviews the history of glass optical fibre and provides commentary on recent developments, and musings on their future.