Fiber-optic transmission systems, new though they may be, are beginning to fall between two stools. On the one hand, systems already characterized and in use, particularly in the USA, are systems using direct modulation; but in the UK, work is in hand on the more exacting techniques of coherent systems. The paper discusses the research work in coherent light technology making use of the fact that light is a sinusoidal electromagnetic vibration at a very high frequency, which can be modulated in the same way as microwave energy can at lower frequencies.