…virtually replaced copper wire in long-distance telephone lines, and it is used to link computers within local area networks. Fiber optics is also the basis of the fiberscopes used in examining internal parts of the body (endoscopy) or inspecting the interiors of manufactured structural products.

The first telephone lines employed the same type of outdoor circuits as telegraph lines—namely, a single noninsulated iron or steel wire supported by wooden poles with glass insulators. Since electric signals require two wires, the second “wire” was…

…local markets to enter the long distance market, and it attempted to implement a single layer of regulation at the federal level.

…end of the first one-way long-distance call, transmitted from Brantford to nearby Paris, Ontario, over a telegraph wire.

…end of the first one-way long-distance call, transmitted from Brantford to nearby Paris, Ontario, over a telegraph wire. Inc. town, 1847; city, 1877. Pop. (2011) 93,650; (2016) 97,496.

…patent for his invention of long-distance telephony. Pupin received the 1924 Pulitzer Prize in biography for his autobiographical work From Immigrant to Inventor (1923).

…(until 1887) he developed a long-distance service by merging and interconnecting local exchanges, set up the Western Electric Company to manufacture telephone equipment, and placed the telephone industry on a sound financial basis.