44.2 terabits per second! Internet speed record, exactly where home fibre broadband connections are heading.
Australian researchers may soon change the Internet as we know it. The researchers have set a speed record with an astonishing data transfer rate of 2 terabits per second. Interestingly, these results were achieved using a slightly modified conventional infrastructure. Microfibre-reinforced optical fibre technology recently developed by researchers at Monash University, Swinburne University and the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology (RMIT) was tested. The data transfer rate was measured and an unimaginable speed of 2 terabits per second was achieved. This is a new Internet speed record. “With the increasing demand for data transmission and reception, connection speeds are becoming increasingly important and advanced technologies have the potential to revolutionise the existing Internet infrastructure. This is really exciting. “The new possibilities of ultra-fast fibre-optic telecommunications links are becoming a reality,” says David Moss of Swinburne University in Australia.
“We have broken the world record for on-chip performance, which is a great achievement,” he adds. Engineers say the chip being tested could help make better use of existing network infrastructure. This could help meet the demands of the expected increase in data traffic in the coming years. “We are now asking whether the internet infrastructure can support an unprecedented number of internet users, remote working, network monitoring and streaming. This really shows that we need to increase the capacity of our Internet connections,” said Bill Corcoran of Monash University, one of the study’s authors. The new optical microfibre technology currently uses dozens of lasers to generate light at different frequencies to transmit bits and bytes through cables to our computers and smart devices. The new chip does not need this. The optical chip is designed as a microfibre placed inside an optical fibre. The microfibres refract light and generate hundreds of laser-like signals, each of which can be used as its own communication channel, the researchers explain. In other words, the researchers have managed to replace laser beams with a single generator that can be completely tuned to a rainbow of light waves.
The test was carried out on 76.6 kilometres of unused fibre optic cable between RMIT University in Melbourne and Clayton University’s Monash campus. During testing, the team found that it was possible to maximise the amount of data per channel, achieving a maximum speed of 2 terabits per second. With the right system, 1,000 videos can be downloaded per second, all in high-definition quality. But what about today’s fibre-optic infrastructure as existing in Ireland and used by Atlantek Broadband? “We hope that we can soon develop integrated circuits that enable this kind of data transfer quickly and cheaply using existing optical fibres,” says Professor Arnan Mitchell, co-author of the study. Fibre optics is a glass and plastic fibre cable that allows interference-free data transmission through light waves at speeds of up to several Tb/s (terabits per second).
This technology also gave rise to the most common name for the modern solution, fibre optic internet for the home. The signal transmitted in this way is immune to any interference from external factors. The annoying and clearly perceptible drop in speed caused by a blizzard, thunderstorm, rain or storm you can forget about it. With this type of fibre optic cable, problems with connection stability are minimised. It is important that a fibre optic connection can transmit not only Internet data, but also high-quality TV and telephone signals. It ensures that the most important multimedia services reach your home. – Initially, such solutions will be attractive for very fast data transmission between data centres. But Mitchell says it is possible that this technology could become cheap and compact enough to be used commercially by the public in cities around the world. The Australian research team plans to scale up existing transmitters to transfer data faster without changing the existing optical infrastructure. The researchers’ goal is to increase Internet speeds by 100 times, from 100 gigabits per second to tens of terabits per second.
44.2 terabits per second! Internet speed record, exactly where home fibre broadband connections are heading.
Australian researchers may soon change the Internet as we know it. The researchers have set a speed record with an astonishing data transfer rate of 2 terabits per second. Interestingly, these results were achieved using a slightly modified conventional infrastructure. Microfibre-reinforced optical fibre technology recently developed by researchers at Monash University, Swinburne University and the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology (RMIT) was tested. The data transfer rate was measured and an unimaginable speed of 2 terabits per second was achieved. This is a new Internet speed record. “With the increasing demand for data transmission and reception, connection speeds are becoming increasingly important and advanced technologies have the potential to revolutionise the existing Internet infrastructure. This is really exciting. “The new possibilities of ultra-fast fibre-optic telecommunications links are becoming a reality,” says David Moss of Swinburne University in Australia.
“We have broken the world record for on-chip performance, which is a great achievement,” he adds. Engineers say the chip being tested could help make better use of existing network infrastructure. This could help meet the demands of the expected increase in data traffic in the coming years. “We are now asking whether the internet infrastructure can support an unprecedented number of internet users, remote working, network monitoring and streaming. This really shows that we need to increase the capacity of our Internet connections,” said Bill Corcoran of Monash University, one of the study’s authors. The new optical microfibre technology currently uses dozens of lasers to generate light at different frequencies to transmit bits and bytes through cables to our computers and smart devices. The new chip does not need this. The optical chip is designed as a microfibre placed inside an optical fibre. The microfibres refract light and generate hundreds of laser-like signals, each of which can be used as its own communication channel, the researchers explain. In other words, the researchers have managed to replace laser beams with a single generator that can be completely tuned to a rainbow of light waves.
The test was carried out on 76.6 kilometres of unused fibre optic cable between RMIT University in Melbourne and Clayton University’s Monash campus. During testing, the team found that it was possible to maximise the amount of data per channel, achieving a maximum speed of 2 terabits per second. With the right system, 1,000 videos can be downloaded per second, all in high-definition quality. But what about today’s fibre-optic infrastructure as existing in Ireland and used by Atlantek Broadband? “We hope that we can soon develop integrated circuits that enable this kind of data transfer quickly and cheaply using existing optical fibres,” says Professor Arnan Mitchell, co-author of the study. Fibre optics is a glass and plastic fibre cable that allows interference-free data transmission through light waves at speeds of up to several Tb/s (terabits per second).
This technology also gave rise to the most common name for the modern solution, fibre optic internet for the home. The signal transmitted in this way is immune to any interference from external factors. The annoying and clearly perceptible drop in speed caused by a blizzard, thunderstorm, rain or storm you can forget about it. With this type of fibre optic cable, problems with connection stability are minimised. It is important that a fibre optic connection can transmit not only Internet data, but also high-quality TV and telephone signals. It ensures that the most important multimedia services reach your home. – Initially, such solutions will be attractive for very fast data transmission between data centres. But Mitchell says it is possible that this technology could become cheap and compact enough to be used commercially by the public in cities around the world. The Australian research team plans to scale up existing transmitters to transfer data faster without changing the existing optical infrastructure. The researchers’ goal is to increase Internet speeds by 100 times, from 100 gigabits per second to tens of terabits per second.