Fibre Isn't a Trick — It's the Thing the Trick Was Trying to Approximate

Logosofia no Dia a Dia · Aug 20, 2026 · 30m

We tend to think of fibre optic internet as cutting-edge consumer tech, but the reality is that much of the glass in the ground has been carrying data for decades. This episode explores a provocative hypothetical: what would happen if we shut down all copper and coax tomorrow and moved everyone to fibre? The answer reveals something surprising about the headroom in existing infrastructure, the economics of digging trenches, and the physical limits of light transmission. From pandemic-era genomic data flown across oceans on cargo planes to the Square Kilometre Array telescope generating 160…