We're getting new fibre!

We're having a new network connection at the office and Sohonet is our new provider. I was talking to an old colleague, John Ferguy who is now technical director with them and he was telling me a bit about single mode fibre. They do everything down nine micron fibres (which are many times smaller than the 62.5 micron multi-mode pipes we use). With much finer launch-angles and glass that is optimised around a single frequency they can get 10 gigabits over fifty kilometres. In this case they run in a blow-tube and when they're ready they send down the fibre with compressed air - very cool.