Squeezing More Bandwidth out of Fiber

EigenHombre writes: The New York Times reports on efforts underway to squeeze more bandwidth out of the fiber optic connections which form the backbone of the Internet. With traffic doubling every two years, the limits of current networks are getting close to saturating. The new technology from Lucent-Alcatel uses the polarization and phase of light (in addition to intensity) to double or quadruple current speeds. Which begs the question, What are we going to do in just a few more years when the backbone connections upgraded by this new technology saturate?