Development of fiber-optic local area networks in Japan

Over the past few years, a great deal of interest in local area networks (LAN's) has rapidly been generated. At the same time, fiber-optic technology has matured to the point that high reliable optical fibers and devices are now available at moderate cost. Under these conditions, the development of fiber-optic LAN's has been advancing rapidly. This paper describes the network configuration considerations for fiber-optic LAN's, optical devices for fiber-optic LAN's, and a development overview of fiber-optic LAN's in Japan.