Margaret B. W. Graham
- Published in print:
- 2007
- Published Online:
- August 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780262122894
- eISBN:
- 9780262277884
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- The MIT Press
- DOI:
- 10.7551/mitpress/9780262122894.003.0007
- Subject:
- Economics and Finance, Economic History
This chapter tackles what challenges and risks Corning Glass Works faced in the financing of optical fiber innovation. The challenges involved in such a venture included the inventing and developing ...
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This chapter tackles what challenges and risks Corning Glass Works faced in the financing of optical fiber innovation. The challenges involved in such a venture included the inventing and developing of the critical part of the new optical fiber system. The greater challenge, however, lay in penetrating a market that was dominated and controlled by the most powerful telephone companies on earth. In their rise to a commanding position in fiber-optic technology, then, Corning had to solve four strategic financial problems. These problems were funding long-term research and development, financing construction and defending intellectual property for a business that did not yet exist, acquiring collateral knowledge of cable and the cable business, and investing in state-of-the-art fiber-optic manufacturing capacity to prepare for predictions of demand.Less
This chapter tackles what challenges and risks Corning Glass Works faced in the financing of optical fiber innovation. The challenges involved in such a venture included the inventing and developing of the critical part of the new optical fiber system. The greater challenge, however, lay in penetrating a market that was dominated and controlled by the most powerful telephone companies on earth. In their rise to a commanding position in fiber-optic technology, then, Corning had to solve four strategic financial problems. These problems were funding long-term research and development, financing construction and defending intellectual property for a business that did not yet exist, acquiring collateral knowledge of cable and the cable business, and investing in state-of-the-art fiber-optic manufacturing capacity to prepare for predictions of demand.
Bernard Finn and Daqing Yang (eds)
- Published in print:
- 2009
- Published Online:
- August 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780262012867
- eISBN:
- 9780262255059
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- The MIT Press
- DOI:
- 10.7551/mitpress/9780262012867.001.0001
- Subject:
- History, History of Science, Technology, and Medicine
By the end of the twentieth century, fiber-optic technology had made possible a worldwide communications system of breathtaking speed and capacity. This network is the latest evolution of ...
More
By the end of the twentieth century, fiber-optic technology had made possible a worldwide communications system of breathtaking speed and capacity. This network is the latest evolution of communications technologies that began with undersea telegraph cables in the 1850s and continued with coaxial telephone cables a hundred years later. This book traces the development of these technologies and assesses their social, economic, and political effects. If we cannot predict the ultimate consequences of today—s wired world’its impact on economic markets, free expression, and war and peace—or the outcome of the conflict between wired and wireless technology, we can examine how similar issues have been dealt with in the past. The contributors to the book do just that, discussing technical developments in undersea cables (and the development of competing radio and satellite communications technology), management of the cables by private and public interests, and the impact on military and political activities. Chapters cover such topics as the daring group of nineteenth-century entrepreneurs who wove a network of copper wires around the world (and then turned conservative with success); the opening of the telegraphic network to general public use; the government- and industry-forced merger of wireless and cable companies in Britain; and the impact of the cable network on diplomacy during the two world wars.Less
By the end of the twentieth century, fiber-optic technology had made possible a worldwide communications system of breathtaking speed and capacity. This network is the latest evolution of communications technologies that began with undersea telegraph cables in the 1850s and continued with coaxial telephone cables a hundred years later. This book traces the development of these technologies and assesses their social, economic, and political effects. If we cannot predict the ultimate consequences of today—s wired world’its impact on economic markets, free expression, and war and peace—or the outcome of the conflict between wired and wireless technology, we can examine how similar issues have been dealt with in the past. The contributors to the book do just that, discussing technical developments in undersea cables (and the development of competing radio and satellite communications technology), management of the cables by private and public interests, and the impact on military and political activities. Chapters cover such topics as the daring group of nineteenth-century entrepreneurs who wove a network of copper wires around the world (and then turned conservative with success); the opening of the telegraphic network to general public use; the government- and industry-forced merger of wireless and cable companies in Britain; and the impact of the cable network on diplomacy during the two world wars.
