nd development initiatives. Besides generating and controlling light, photonics technology can rapidly disseminate and process large volumes of digital information. Speed, immu- nity from interference, increased bandwidth, and enhanced data storage capacity are some of the advantages of working with light. These attributes are channeling sizeable investments into photonic research activities. "A single optical fiber can carry the equivalent of 300,000 telephone calls at the same time," says Michael Valenti, an analyst with Technical Insights, a technology research firm based in San Antonio, Texas. "Photonics technology also pro- vides sufficient communication capacity to meet the forecast demand for fully interactive multimedia, Internet services." The rapid transition from an elec- tronic to an optical telecommunications network is anticipated to spur multi- disciplinary efforts to take advantage of the advanced information-carrying ability of photons. 4.1 FASTER NETWORKS New research in laboratories on opposite U.S. coasts shows that optical telecom technology is still far from reaching its full potential. At the Massa- Telecosmos: The Next Great Telecom Revolution, edited by John Edwards ISBN 0-471-65533-3 Copyright © 2005 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc. FASTER NETWORKS chusetts Institute of Technology, a research team led by physicist Evan J. Reed has discovered that sending a shockwave through a photonic crystal allows far greater control over light. When the light between a moving shock front and a reflecting surface is confined, incoming light can become trapped at the shockwave boundary, bouncing back and forth in a "hall of mirrors" effect. As the shock moves through the crystal, the light's wavelength is shifted slightly each time it bounces. If the shockwave travels in the opposite direction of the light, the light's frequency will get higher. If the wave travels in the same direc- tion, the light's frequency drops. A photonic crystal is a credit-card-thick stack of optical filters. By chang- ing the way th