low attenuation means fewer repeaters needed on oceanic cables, reducing the cost of operating the fiber optic cable.
"Using estimates for the theoretical loss limit of ZBLAN glass, a 2,000-km length of ZBLAN fiber could have the same optical loss as 10 km of silica fiber, which would be an extraordinary performance gain."
"Fluoride fibers inherently provide naturally a much wider bandwidth than silica with up to 100x usable number of data channels, <2 petabytes per second of data with no amplification for 1,000km or more and no need to carry power for said amplification lines. By comparison, current undersea cables use one repeater for amplification every 100-150km, at a cost of ~$1M each."
