It is now possible to transmit up to 301 terabits per second via a fiber optic connection. This creates opportunities to use our networks for longer
Fiber optic has been the fastest medium to transmit data for some time and that bar has now been raised even further. Scientists from Britain’s Aston University, together with the National Institute of Information and Communications Technology (NICT) in Japan and Nokia Bell Labs in the US, have set a new record.
301 Tbps equates to about 301,000 Gbps (gigabit per second) or 301,000,000 megabits per second (Mbps). To put that into perspective, an HD stream on Netflix uses 5 Mbps. A 4K stream is about 25 Mbps.
New wavelengths
Aston University explains the breakthrough by using new wavelengths on the fiber optic cable, similar to different colors of light that would be used. This was done with so-called optical amplifiers and optical gain equalizers.
Typically, the C and L bands are used for fiber optic. The E-band was also used for this project, which is close to the C-band in terms of spectrum, but three times wider. Until recently it was impossible to control the channels in that E-band smoothly.
The record itself was presented as a paper at an optical communications conference last October. This month it was published by the Institute of Engineering and Technology (IET).
Nice now, important later
Is such a breakthrough immediately noticeable in your daily internet speed? No, but it is important for its future. Today, the majority of internet connections already run via fiber optic to the street cabinet, from the street cabinet to the houses they run via copper (today for VDSL), Coax (the cables from Telenet or Voo/Orange) or via fiber optic, which is currently being deployed nationally. rolled out by Proximus, Fiberklare and recently also by Telenet and Fluvius.
Today, those players offer subscriptions of up to one Gbps (sometimes more for business customers). As an end user, you are still far from the 301 Tbps that is achieved. But it does mean that the fiber optic cable itself can last for a long time as an internet highway. This is also good news for network operators, because the more data that can be transferred over one connection, the less likely it is to upgrade the physical line.
2024-04-04 06:29:38
#Researchers #send #Tbps #fiber #Data #News
