The times when one has only 10Mb / s to navigate will soon be obsolete. It is not just about the arrival of 5G, but from research by scientists who they explore possibilities to fit more data, in the same optical fiber as always. Perhaps in the not-so-distant future, any file in the cloud will be within reach of less than a second of download.
That is in part the goal of the researchers at the London Global University, who achieved a new record download speed: 178 terabits per second. The brutal figure is enough to download the entire Netflix catalog in less than a second. The most impressive of the investigation is that the speed was achieved through a system that does not modify the infrastructure, but the light spectrum used in data transmission.
A bigger light window
They essentially broadened the spectrum of light to be used: more wavelengths means more information capable of being sent through fiber optics. Instead of using 9THz bandwidth, which is commonly used in commercial offerings, the researchers used an optical fiber with a “ultra bandwidth“, up to 16.83THz. A wider transmission window let in more light.
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The previous record for download speed was 150 terabits per second
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The best thing is that the same technology used by researchers could be used in the future on the fiber optic infrastructure deployed. The trick is in the signal amplifiers that transform it to take advantage of more wavelengths. Amplifiers, explains the university, they are usually placed every so often in a range of 40 to 100 kilometers.
Finding new data transmission techniques is essential, says the researcher in charge, Lidia Galdino, because regardless of the pandemic, data traffic has grown exponentially during the last 10 years. The only way such growing demand is financially sustainable for everyone is to surf the Internet at new speeds.
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