Some memories of the early years with optical fibres at the british post office: a personal account

At a time when the best available optical glass had a loss of 600 dB/km, when the break-even point for optical communications was put at 20 dB/km, and when the rival copper waveguide system was claiming 2¿3 dB/km in field trials, the single-mode fibre project was born at the Post Office Research Station, Dollis Hill, and had the nerve to survive and to conquer