BACK REFLECTION: FORWARD LOOKING 30 YEARS AGO BY JOSÉ CHESNOY FOREWORD
S
ubOptic 1986 (Reference 1), first convention of this kind, took place in Versailles in 1986, a date that was at the corner stone of the optical fiber era. Nobody could really forecast the incredible progress that submarine cables technology had then achieved up to now (Book, Reference 2). To predict the future is a constant game in all conferences. This First SubOptic Convention was not an exception. It reveals usually to be a
84
hazardous exercise as long as one is checking these views 30 years later! The topic of this short article is to review a selection of forward looking views written in SubOptic 1986 proceedings, confronted to the today perspective. Some topics are selected here for which visionary sentences are quoted with few comments.
CAPACITY OF OPTICAL CABLES WILL TRIGGER A GLOBAL NETWORK WITH NEW APPLICATIONS
Z. Kochman, (Overseas Telecommunication Commission, Australia), “The availability of large capacity fiber optics cable whose performances is almost independent of length, provides the opportunity for a global ring main submarine cable network…. It is important that plans for future regional systems do not exclude that they form part of a larger global cable network” Australia, with its unique position in the oceans and its close relationship with the submarine cable industry, had identified early how