The first live telephone traffic carried over optical fibre ran in 1977, and in 1988 TAT-8, the first transatlantic fibre-optic cable, entered service linking the United States with Britain and France. By transmitting information as pulses of light through glass, fibre offered vastly greater bandwidth and lower loss than copper wires. Capacity grew rapidly as more fibre was laid along streets, between cities and across oceans.
It built the high-capacity backbone, beneath pavements and seabeds alike, that made the data economy possible and created demand for highly connected office districts, data centres and digitally serviced quarters.
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