The faster people can access the Internet, the more they can—and will—do online

The faster people can access the Internet, the more they can—and will—do online. The arrival of broadband Internet made possible the phenomenon of cloud computing (where people store and process their data remotely, using online services instead of a home or business PC in their own premises). In much the same way, the steady rollout of fiber broadband (typically 5–10 times faster than conventional DSL broadband, which uses ordinary telephone lines) will make it much more commonplace for people to do things like streaming movies online instead of watching broadcast TV or renting DVDs. With more fiber capacity and faster connections, we'll be tracking and controlling many more aspects of our lives online using the so-called Internet of things.

But it's not just public Internet data that streams down fiber-optic lines. Computers were once connected over long distances by telephone lines or (over shorter distances) copper Ethernet cables, but fiber cables are increasingly the preferred method of networking computers because they're very affordable, secure, reliable, and have much higher capacity. Instead of linking its offices over the public Internet, it's perfectly possible for a company to set up its own fiber network (if it can afford to do so) or (more likely) buy space on a private fiber network. Many private computer networks run on what's called dark fiber, which sounds a bit sinister, but is simply the unused capacity on another network (optical fibers waiting to be lit up).
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The Internet was cleverly designed to ferry any kind of information for any kind of use; it's not limited to carrying computer data. While telephone lines once carried the Internet, now the fiber-optic Internet carries telephone (and Skype) calls instead. Where telephone calls were once routed down an intricate patchwork of copper cables and microwave links between cities, most long-distance calls are now routed down fiber-optic lines. Vast quantities of fiber were laid from the 1980s onward; estimates vary wildly, but the worldwide total is believed to be several hundred million kilometers (enough to cross the United States about a million times). In the mid-2000s, it was estimated that as much as 98 percent of this was unused "dark fiber"; today, although much more fiber is in use, it's still generally believed that most networks contain anywhere from a third to a half dark fiber.