Word: optics
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...DONE Tumors can be examined with a miniature fiber-optic camera that is inserted through the nipple and into a milk duct. Eventually surgeons may be able to treat tumors through the same tiny probe...
...AVAILABILITY The fiber-optic scope was okayed by the FDA last summer. Using it for treatment may be less than five years away...
Bandwidth, the capacity of a fiber-optic line to transmit data from one place to another, was considered to be a commodity for which demand was virtually limitless. But as investors in U.S.-based telecommunications company Global Crossing have learned, "endless demand" turned out to be another New Economy nostrum. Anticipating a data tsunami that never came, Global Crossing built a $10 billion, 160,000-km fiber-optic network spanning two oceans and four continents. Last week, the New York Stock Exchange-listed company filed for U.S. bankruptcy court protection in order to restructure its $12.3 billion debt...
...Global Crossing's international network seemed like the right idea at the right time?investors certainly bought into the conceit, driving Global Crossing stock price up to a peak of $60 in February 2000. As Internet traffic has slowed, however, that optimistic build-out has resulted in a fiber-optic glut?too much capacity and too little traffic. Transmission prices on some routes fell 50% a year in 1999 and 2000. Analysts estimate that less than 5% of Global Crossing's total capacity is being utilized. "They built a formidable network, but they got caught between rapidly mounting debt...
Start with what got us here. Businesses overspent to build things like PCs, Internet switches and routers, as well as speedy fiber-optic lines. That spending helped fuel the boom. But once corporate tech budgets tightened, tech stocks plummeted, and so did spending among consumers who held those stocks. Suddenly, those consumers felt much poorer. Typically, cycles work the other way. Robust consumer spending at the height of a boom induces businesses to build more plants at just the wrong moment--when the Federal Reserve is ready to dampen the whole party with higher interest rates to root out inflation...