The Internet has transformed most areas of our lives over the last few decades, and technology continues to improve: researchers are simply setting a new record for data transfer rates, recording an unbelievable speed of 178 terabits per second (Tbps).
That’s about a fifth faster than the previous record, set by a team of researchers in Japan, and roughly twice as fast as the best internet today.
With 4K movies over 15GB in size, you could download about 1,500 of them in one second at the new speed.
This can also be more than just a super-fast lab experiment – the technology used to reach the 178 Tbps record can be added relatively easily to existing optical glass fiber tubes, according to the scientists behind the project.
Lidia Galdino at work. (James Tye / UCL)
Today’s Internet is built on optical fiber paths that amplifiers use to stop the light signals from degrading.
Adding the new technology to the existing amplifiers, running 40-100 kilometers (25-62 miles) apart, would require a fraction of the expenses needed to replace the actual glass fiber, the researchers say.
“While today’s modern cloud center interconnections are capable of transporting up to 35 terabits per second, we work with new technologies that use existing infrastructure more efficiently, make better use of optical glass fiber bandwidth and a world record transmission rate of 178 terabits a second, “says Lidia Galdino, an electronics and electrical engineer from University College London in the United Kingdom.
To achieve this record-breaking speed, the team used a much wider range of wavelengths (colors of light) than would normally be used to transmit data.
The custom system used a bandwidth of 16.8 terahertz (THz) in a single-fiber core, four times the 4.5 THz used by most of our current network infrastructure.
That increase in bandwidth also requires an impulse of signal strength and several different amplification techniques are combined in this case.
The hybrid system carefully manages the characteristics of each individual wavelength, with a process called constellation form to optimize signal transmissions and prevent interference.
The combination of these techniques meant that much more information could be packed into the same space and transferred more quickly without this information being cluttered under the road.
The new 178 Tbps record pushes the theoretical limits of what a data transmission network can take.
This idea of printing more information through existing pipes is one that many scientists are researching, trying to find the balance between getting data shifted as photons of light faster, without these photons interfering with each other.
If these upgrades can close into existing infrastructure, so much the better.
Of course, with a global pandemic forcing many of us to work and socialize over the Internet instead of face-to-face, the need for faster speeds and greater bandwidth has never been more acute – especially with such a 40 percent of the world population is still connected.
“Regardless of the COVID-19 crisis, Internet traffic has increased exponentially over the last 10 years and this rapid growth in data demand is related to the cost per bit that is declining,” says Galdino.
“The development of new technologies is crucial for maintaining this trend towards lower costs, while meeting future requirements for data rates that will continue to increase, with hitherto unthinkable applications that will transform people’s lives.”
The study was published in IEEE Photonics Technology Letters.
.
