Why wasn Free-Space Optics deployed on a much larger scale sooner?
The broader market for FSO did not emerge until late 2000 when it became clear that fiber-optic cable would not reach into every building in the near future. The costs and challenges associated with trenching fiber in metropolitan areas can be prohibitive and bandwidth demands today in many cities are outstripping service providers’ ability to deploy fiber-optic cable. Combined with shrinking capital budgets, other gaps and applications in service providers’ networks must also be addressed through viable alternatives such as FSO.
