About the Film
Two Breakthroughs. Five Decades. One Connected World.
In the early 1970s, two computers found each other, exchanged data over a new transmission control protocol, and set the internet in motion. In the same era, researchers learned to carry information as pulses of light through strands of glass, and fiber optic communication was born. Neither breakthrough was built with the other in mind. Together, they rewrote how people live, learn, work, and connect.
ThoughtWaves traces the fifty years between those first sparks and the networks being built today, following the engineers, entrepreneurs, and policymakers who moved fiber and the internet from laboratory curiosity to essential infrastructure. Featuring voices including Vint Cerf, Ajit Pai, Alan Davidson, Larry Irving, and leaders from Cisco, Corning, Nokia, and EPB, the film is both a record of what was accomplished and a case for the work still ahead.
The Fiber Broadband Association developed ThoughtWaves in partnership with Pilot Moon Films because the fiber industry’s story has never been told in full. Every network being built today rests on decisions made decades ago by people whose names most Americans have never heard. The same combination of technical ambition, private investment, and sound public policy that built the internet is what will finish the job of connecting every community.
Directed by Emmy Award winning filmmaker John DeMaio, ThoughtWaves received an Award of Excellence Special Mention in the documentary short category from the Best Shorts Competition, recognized for its storytelling, research, and examination of how technology reshapes society.