Silly me for having to stumble across this story elsewhere when I could have just read this post.

And it is a big deal, with the lede almost buried by the NASA context, which makes it sound like it applies only to communication to and in space, when in fact, yeah, it's a hell of a big deal for communication everywhere. And calling it "photonics" made it hard to discern the real, and conceptually simple breakthrough: Modulating a laser beam at high data rates to exploit the massive potential bandwidth of light. Can you give me a "hallelujah!"?

Next up: Quantum entanglement to get around that pesky c.