On Scale - Fiber Optic Splicers - I would have been wrong

It is 2024. It is very likely that this page was brought to your device using light inside a fiber optic cable. Even if you don’t have a fiber optic connection at your home (Not very likely), at some point between which ever cloud computer this website is stored in and your device there were multiple fiber optic cables that this data has traversed.

I think it was some time around 2013 maybe when I first saw actual glass fibers. We were getting it installed at my home. I was mesmerized by how tiny and delicate the glass fibers were and how unlike copper wires you cant just tie two pieces together and call it a day. This was my introduction to the Fiber Splicing Machine.

The people from the ISP who do this are usually seen lugging a suitcase full of tools because thats how complicated Fiber Installation is. In the age of internet through copper they could probably get by with a pair of wire strippers and electrical tape in their pocket.

Instead of me explaining all the various tools in the suitcase, you can see the video below.

The most sophisticated machine obviously is the actual splicer. Not only does it have to carefully hold and manipulate those tiny strands of glass in 3 axes, It needs precision cameras and some form of video processing to ensure its holding them properly and finally a laser to literally melt and fuse them together! Don’t forget that this is a hollow glass fiber, the hollow portions must be extremely precisely joined or else it just might not work or will be too lossy for a good connection.

To the question of scale - I was thinking if I was the inventor of this process or was just a person who was asked if this should be made mainstream (Assuming everyone where still on copper), I would have said absolutely not. I would have assumed that gadgets of this precision would be too costly, could not work in the vast variety of regions and circumstances for a full individual level rollout. I would have been so wrong because these have become main stream, I see one almost every other day, People carry these suitcases in the millions across the country, people sitting in a ditch in the road splicing the “fragile” fibers as hundreds of vehicles pass by throwing dust and smoke everywhere, these were the kinds of situations I would have assumed that we can never make a device for. I would have been wrong.