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Washington, DC, Oct. 15 (UPI) -- U.S. regulators will let utility companies send high-speed Internet signals through electrical outlets to residential and business clients. --SNIP-- The technology uses a special modem that plugs into electrical outlets and offers data at speeds of 1 to 3 megabits a second, comparable to broadband service over cable modems or conventional phone lines, though not as fast as the 5 megabits a second achievable through the residential fiber optic lines just now are being introduced by the Bell companies.

CORNING, United States (AFP) - China has accused the world's top optical fiber producers in the United States, South Korea (news - web sites) and Japan of dumping, US technology group Corning Inc. said. Corning said it had received a preliminary determination from the Chinese trade ministry that it had dumped US-made "single-mode optical fibre," causing injury to Chinese producers. The Chinese authorities also named the other major manufacturers: Japanese giant Furukawa and its US-based OFS subsidiary, and South Korean groups Samsung and LG, a Corning official said. The preliminary ruling against Corning means Chinese importers of its optical fiber...

CJTF-7 Public AffairsBAGHDAD, Iraq Release #040112a First telephone fiber optic cable laid in Northern IraqMOSUL, IRAQ – A ceremony was held in the city of Mosul today in honor of the first fiber optic communications network to be laid in Northern Iraq. With the new 40 kilometers of fiber optic cable connecting Mosul to Dohuk, a city to the north, communications between people will be greatly improved. “This is a very historic day,” said Lt. Col. Welton Chase, commander, 501st Signal Battalion, 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault). “This is the beginning of a network that will tie into banks, universities...

<p>AP) -- Scientists say they have identified an ocean sponge living in the darkness of the deep sea that grows thin glass fibers capable of transmitting light better than industrial fiber optic cables used for telecommunication.</p> <p>The natural glass fibers also are much more flexible than manufactured fiber optic cable that can crack if bent too far.</p>

WASHINGTON, Aug 20 (Reuters) - Fiber optic cables -- an amazing invention showing how clever people can be, right? Maybe so, but nature got there first, U.S. researchers reported on Wednesday. A deep-sea sponge with a "skeleton" made out of silica did it first and did it better, the researchers said. It has spicules -- skeletal structures -- that look very much like modern fiber optic cables, except they don't crack, the team at Bell Laboratories/Lucent Technologies (NYSE:LU - News) in Murray Hill, New Jersey, reported. Fiber optic cables are long strands of pure glass about the diameter of a...

(AP) - Scientists in Israel have concentrated free sunlight into a high-intensity beam typically reserved for expensive laser surgery. Details of the liver surgery experiments on mice appear in Thursday's issue of the journal Nature. "It would be especially valuable in my university's medical center, which has not been able to afford a single laser fiber-optic surgical system," said the study's lead author, Jeffery M. Gordon of Ben-Gurion University in Tel Aviv. Sophisticated laser surgery equipment costs more than $100,000, while the sunlight scalpel system is assembled with off-the-shelf parts. Gordon and partner Daniel Feuermann used a rooftop mirror less...

A cheap alternative to the lasers used in surgery has been devised using an energy source that is free and abundant - sunshine. The working prototype made by Israeli physicists concentrates sunlight down a fibre-optic cable to provide a tool for surgeons. Jeffrey Gordon and his colleagues at Ben-Gurion University in Israel hope it might one day replace the expensive surgical lasers used in operations such as the destruction of tumours in the liver. The light for the surgical "suntrap" is gathered by a parabolic mirrored dish, 20 centimetres across. This concentrates the light, which is then focused on to...

Furukawa Electric Co., which is looking into further streamlining the operation of its U.S. affiliate--Optical Fiber Solutions (OFS)--plans to reduce its workforce at the OFS Laboratories in New Jersey, company sources said Saturday. Many former employees of Bell Laboratories, which was associated with Alexander Graham Bell, inventor of the telephone, are now working at OFS Laboratories. Bell Laboratories' research and development abilities were the main reason Furukawa acquired OFS, but it decided that it has to carry out restructuring without sacred cows, the sources said. In November 2001, Furukawa purchased OFS from Lucent Technologies, a major U.S. communications machinery maker,...

Intelligence ops in Baghdad show need for physical security back home The U.S. Central Command today declined to offer details on how U.S. military forces were tipped off to an alleged meeting of Saddam Hussein and his top aides yesterday. But sources indicated today that physical taps on telephone and fiber-optic landlines in the Iraqi capital of Baghdad may have played a role. "We have a number of methods that we use to gain information," Brig. Gen. Vincent Brooks said during today's Central Command press briefing. "A single source is never adequate, so we have multiple sources." Bombing missions near...

Press ReleaseSOURCE: Global CrossingHutchison Telecommunications and Singapore Technologies Telemedia Sign Agreement to Acquire a Majority Interest in Global Crossing - Global Crossing's creditor groups support investment agreement - Agreement approved by bankruptcy court on August 9 - Investment will fund successful emergence of Global Crossing from Chapter 11, expected to occur in early 2003 subject to obtaining regulatory approvals MADISON, N.J., Aug. 9 /PRNewswire/ -- Global Crossing today announced that it has signed a definitive agreement under which Hutchison Telecommunications Limited (Hutchison), a wholly owned subsidiary of Hutchison Whampoa Limited, and Singapore Technologies Telemedia Pte. Ltd. (ST Telemedia) will invest...

<p>One of the largest Chinese telecommunications equipment suppliers, Huawei Technologies Company, recently unveiled plans to establish Future Wei, a wholly-owned U.S. subsidiary with headquarters in Plano, Texas.</p> <p>Ordinarily, such a foreign investment in the United States would be welcomed by the local Chamber of Commerce and others anticipating associated employment and revenue opportunities. As Americans learn more about the parent company and what Chinese enterprises like it are up to, however, patriots in Texas and elsewhere in this country are likely to say "No way, Huawei!"</p>