Ever since I was a 13, I have always been intrigued by fiber optics. My first exposure was a Christmas gift, my parents gave me one of those fiber optic spray lamps.

Fiber Optic Spray Lamp

The notion that light could bend — I don’t mean slight refraction, I mean 180 degrees of bending — was just fascinating to me. Later on, in high school, I attended a lecture by Cisco on the future of fiber and learned how fast data moved through fiber. In my CS 404 class, we have been learning much about the history of computing and of the internet. While many view the “dot-com” bubble of 1999 as a bad memory, it did have at least one powerful consequence: the urgency to install a huge fiber optic infrastructure throughout the world. Luckily for the world, nobody tried to get a refund on the fiber networks after the dot-com bubble burst. The ability to send data internationally at super-fast speeds has helped to “flatten the world.” For companies that are based on information and services, distance is now a irrelevant. Does it really matter if the person who is processing your order is in Texas or in India? Not really!

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