Engineers set new world record internet speed

The fastest data transfer speed in the world has been achieved by a team of University College London engineers who achieve an internet transfer speed a fifth faster than the previous record.

Working with two companies, Xtera and KDDI Research, the research team led by Dr. Lidia Galdino (UCL Electronic & Electrical Engineering) achieved a data transfer rate of 178 terabits per second (178,000,000 megabits per second) – a speed at which it could Download entire Netflix library in less than a second.

The record, which is double the capacity of any system currently deployed in the world, was achieved by transmitting data over a much wider range of colors of light, than wavelengths, than is normally used in optical glass fiber. (Current infrastructure uses a limited spectrum bandwidth of 4.5THz, with 9THz commercial bandwidth systems entering the market, while the researchers used a bandwidth of 16.8THz.)

To do this, researchers combine different amplifier technologies needed to increase signal strength over this wider bandwidth and maximum speed by developing new Geometric Shaping (GS) constellations (patterns of signal combinations that make the best use of phase, brightness and polarization properties of light), manipulating the properties of each individual wavelength. The achievements are described in a new paper in IEEE Photonics Technology Letters.

The advantage of the technology is that it can be used cost-effectively on existing infrastructure, through upgrades of the amplifiers located at intervals of 40-100 km on optical fiber routes. (Upgrading an amplifier would cost £ 16,000, while installing new optical fibers in urban areas could cost up to £ 450,000 per kilometer.)

The new record, set in a UCL lab, is a fifth faster than the previous world record held by a team in Japan.

At this speed, it would take less than an hour to download the data that made the first image of the world of a black hole (which, due to its size, had to be stored on half a ton of hard disks and with the aircraft was transported). The speed is close to the theoretical limit of data transfer set by the American mathematician Claude Shannon in 1949.

Lead author Dr. Galdino, a lecturer at UCL and a Royal Academy of Engineering Research Fellow, said: “While today’s modern cloud data center interconnections are capable of transporting up to 35 terabits per second, we are working with new technologies that surpass existing ones. use infrastructure more efficiently, make better use of optical fiber bandwidth and enable a world record transmission speed of 178 terabits per second. “

Since the onset of the COVID-19 crisis, the demand for broadband communications services has increased, with some operators experiencing as much as a 60% increase in Internet traffic compared to prior to the crisis. In this unusual situation, the resistance and capacity of broadband networks has become even more critical.

Dr Galdino added: “But regardless of the COVID-19 crisis, internet traffic has increased exponentially in the last 10 years, and this rapid growth in the demand for data is related to the cost per bit that is declining. The development of new technologies, it is crucial to maintain this trend towards lower costs, while meeting future data rate requirements, which continue to increase, with hitherto unthinkable applications that will transform people’s lives. ”