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Harlow is an important centre for business and technical innovation, with a claim to being second only to Cambridge for research; a claim supported by the presence of such companies as GlaxoSmithKline and Raytheon together with many other high technology companies of all industries and sizes. Close proximity to London and to Stansted Airport also promotes business activity in the town.

Harlow’s connection to innovation has a historical perspective as well. In the 60s, local company Standard Telephones and Cables (STC) introduced the concept and then the reality of fibre optic cables to the world. Now a part of Nortel, the company was owned at the time by US-based ITT, who since purchasing it back in 1925 had developed STC to take entrepreneurial risks based on solid research and brave innovation.

In 1966, a team lead by Dr Charles Kao demonstrated that light as well as electricity could be used to transmit speech, and more importantly, data, accurately at very high speeds. He recognised that communications are frequently long distance, and that light loss should be no more than 10 or 20 dB per kilometre. After identifying a critical and theoretical specification for long-range communication devices that met the required light loss standard, he illustrated the need for a purer form of glass to achieve this specification. This led to the development of optical waveguide fibres capable of carrying 65,000 times more information than copper wire.


In 2009, Dr Kao’s work was recognised with a half share of the Nobel Prize in Physics, for "groundbreaking achievements concerning the transmission of light in fibres for optical communication".

After Dr Kao’s pioneering work, the Harlow research centre continued to accelerate the fibre optic revolution. In 1978, the first installation of a fibre optic cable was completed. It was designed and developed in Harlow and ran between Hitchin and Stevenage. Ten years later the first fibre optic trans-Atlantic telephone cable was laid; the first time a submarine cable of that length had been possible.

While a typical copper cable could carry less than 100 long distance phone calls simultaneously, an equivalent fibre optic cable has the capacity for some 1.6 billion calls. The speed, quality and performance of fibre optic technology has been critical to the emergence of the high-speed global communication networks that underpin productivity tools like email, the Internet, videoconferencing and low-cost long distance phone calls that are essential to the success of businesses throughout the world.

As an integral part of Harlow’s high technology environment, Oracle Components supplies fibre optic as well as copper cable to its customers, sometimes in highly specific configurations. Recently a customer required a special hybrid cable comprising fibre optic cores for carrying signals alongside copper cores for power. In addition to the demanding specification, the customer required 50 Km of cable in 8 weeks. After much effort, Oracle succeeded in delivering the complex cable to the required length and specification, on time.

With its fibre optic content, the cable owed its existence partly to Harlow’s history. Equally, it owed its delivery to Oracle’s history. Over their years of trading, Oracle’s list of suppliers has grown to beyond the 5000 mark. This breadth of choice always makes Oracle a potential solution to manufacturers’ supply requirements. But it’s their commitment to sourcing the specifications, quantities and schedules that customers actually want rather than just offering off-the-shelf component deliveries that really makes the difference. It’s hard work, but it ultimately pays off for Oracle as well as the customers.

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