Phase.1　Hidden Desire

Everyone had a sense of crisis. What exceeded this, however, was our sense of social mission and, most of all, we had a simple desire to "win!"

A simple desire to "beat our rivals." There were people who stuck to this desire and left behind one of the world's greatest achievements. They are the people who devoted themselves to the development of optical fiber with an exceptionally strong spirit, and who supported the history of Fujikura thereafter. Fujikura began to tackle optical fiber in 1970. At that time, the keys to the practical application of optical fiber were in the hands of the U.S. Corning Glass Works and the Bell Telephone Laboratory. Initially, Corning announced in 1970 it had developed a fiber with remarkably little loss of 20 dB/km (20 decibel per 1km) in the transmission of light. Following this, in 1974, the Bell Telephone Laboratory announced the development of a fiber with transmission loss of 4 dB/km at the International Glass Conference held in Kyoto. It was here, that the practical application of optical fiber suddenly appeared to be within actual reach.

Also at Fujikura, a drastic shift took place that included a rapid increase of researchers and focused allocation of research & development budgets on the Communication Business Division. Upon recognition of our research system and its achievements, we participated in joint research with the former Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Public Corporation (currently, NTT) together with other leading wire manufacturers. "Never let our rivals win."-this fighting spirit has become the foremost motivation for the research & development team.

MCVD