Eight of the largest US telecommunications and computer companies, research institutes and universities have come together to research all-optical information highways: half of the $14m funding for the Optical Networks Technology Consortium will come from the US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, with the rest coming from participants, which have been organised by Bell Communications Research Inc; the other members are Columbia University, Hewlett-Packard Co’s Laboratories, General Motors Corp’s Hughes Aircraft, Lawrence Livermore National Labs, Northern Telecom Ltd, Rockwell International Corp and United Technologies Corp’s Research Center, and the development effort will focus on building a laboratory prototype of an experimental, all-optical, multi-wavelength telecommunications network.
