A team of researchers have set a new data transmission world record using a commercially available optical fibre.
The team at Japan’s National Institute of Information and Communications Technology recorded a data rate of 402 terabits per second – roughly five million times faster than the average broadband speed in the UK.
The researchers achieved the feat by constructing a system that was capable of covering all transmission bands of standard optical fibres, helped by the use of various amplification technologies.
It’s worth keeping in mind that these speeds were achieved under optimal lab conditions, but the team at NICT claim that the method they used could be adopted within future telecommunication networks and, ultimately, be implemented for real-world use.
In a press release, a spokesperson for NICT said: “It is expected that the data-rate of optical transmission systems required to enable “Beyond 5G” information services will increase enormously.
“New wavelength regions enable deployed optical fiber networks to perform higher data-rate transmission and extend the useful life of existing network systems.”
The team of researchers added that they “will continue to promote research and development into new amplifier technologies, components and fibers to support new transmission windows for both near and long-term applications.”
According to Ofcom’s latest report, published in September of last year, the average internet speed recorded in the UK was 69.4 Mbps in 2023.
The fastest speed currently advertised in the UK is 1.13 Gbps. Even this speed is still roughly 400,000 times slower than the new record set in Japan.
A data-rate of 402 Tb/s could download roughly 12,500 films in a single second – more than three times the number of movies currently available on Netflix.
For gamers, that’s Baldur’s Gate 3, Red Dead Redemption 2, and the entire Fallout 4 collection all in less than a tenth of a second.
A game-changer for the impatient!
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