Fiberoptic cables use lasers to send information down glass fibers. Fiberoptic cables are light, small, energy-efficient, non-rusting, not easily wire-tapped, and long-lasting. They let us send a huge amount of information (that is they are high-bandwidth), and at near the speed of light. A single cable can carry up to 1 million simultaneous phone conversations.
In the past decade the bandwidth of fiberoptic cable has increased 100 times while the cost of fiber fell from $3 a meter to 15 cents a meter [53]. Currently every developed nation is laying millions of kilometers of fiberoptic cable a year. Hong Kong's telephone network will be all digital by 1994, Singapore's by 1995, and Japan's by 1996.