MURRAY HILL, N.J. -- Scientists fromLucent Technologies' (NYSE: LU - news) BellLabs have calculated the maximum amount of information that can betransmitted over optical fiber, demonstrating that fiber opticstechnology will result in robust, long-term and scalable communicationsnetworks.The Bell Labs team, whose scientific results appear in today's issue ofthe British journal Nature, determined that it is theoreticallypossible to send approximately 100 terabits of information, or roughly20 billion one-page e-mails, simultaneously per strand offiber."As networks continue to make communication faster, smaller, cheaperand smarter in the next decade, there will be an evengreater emphasis on fiber optics technology," said Rod Alferness,senior vice president of optical networking research at BellLabs. "As we light more optical fiber, and couple this with all-opticalswitches like the Lucent WaveStar® LambdaRouter, we willcontinue to improve the speed and quality of metropolitan and backbonenetworks, helping to enrich the end-user experience."Bell Labs