Whats new is overcoming the obstacles to using the lasers to transmit through free-space to communicate over orbital, lunar, and interplanetary distances.

The %100 success of the Lunar Laser Communication Demonstration showed those hurdles could be surmounted. 622Mbps were transmitted from the moon to the ground terminal using a Laser beam ~0.5Watts in power from a transmitter 10cm in diameter.
https://www.bostonglobe.com/business/2013/12/09/mit-lincoln-laboratory-builds-broadband-for-moon/J8Gi8MyllWNvR3InBIuZlM/story.html
For comparison LRO had a 75cm transmitter dish, over 40W transmitted power, and could only do ~100Mbps…

The article is about leveraging the billions of dollars invested by industry to miniaturize these transmitters and receivers by a lot to minimize the size weight and power even further.

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.