Since the dawn of the space age, NASA has been relying on radio communications technology to send and receive data to and from spacecraft.

Since the dawn of the space age, NASA has been relying on radio communications technology to send and receive data to and from spacecraft.

Now, this technology can’t keep pace with the projected data needs of further human exploration. To remedy this, NASA is turning to optical communications technology, a transformational technology that will enable NASA, other government agencies and the commercial space industry to undertake future complex space missions requiring increased data rates, or decreased mass, size and power burdens for communications.

Here on earth, such technology, while on the edge of commercialisation, could take some time to establish itself through the telecoms infrastructure. Eventually, though, the massive bandwidth delivered by optical communication will have important implications for business and leisure alike.

John Dunne, founder of Intune Networks and a leading expert in optical communication technology, says, ‘The amount of data that businesses are generating is still growing every year, and optical communications offers the most bandwidth available in anything that you can use to send information.’

The result will be a guaranteed connection on a mobile phone or computer. It’s a luxury that should put so many day-to-day technology frustrations – internet cutting out, mobile phone conversation breaking up – to bed once and for all.