The communication technology breakthrough will help download 57,000 full-length movies in 1 second or the entire Spotify library in under 3 seconds
Since the technology is rolled out 4core optical fiber it is easy to deploy on the existing fibre network across the globe
Researchers from the Network Research Institute at the National Institute of Information and Communications Technology (NICT) in Japan have made breakthrough by setting the new fastest internet speed that successfully transferred data at a speed of 319 terabits per second.
The technology breakthrough is succeeded in the first S, C and L-bands transmission over long-haul distances in a 4-core optical fiber with a standard outer diameter (0.125 mm). With this kind of broadband speed you can download 57,000 full-length movies in 1 second or the entire Spotify library in under 3 seconds.
The researchers, lead by Benjamin J. Puttnam, constructed a transmission system that makes full use of wavelength division multiplexing technology by combining different amplifier technologies, to achieve a transmission demonstration over a distance of 3,001 km.
Using a common comparison metric of optical fiber transmission the data rate and distance produce of 957 petabits per second x km, is a world record for optical fibers with standard outer diameter. With that kind of broadband speed you can download 57,000 full-length movies in 1 second or the entire Spotify library in under 3 seconds.
It is interesting to note NASA’s backbone runs at 400 gigabytes per second, while a majority of us in India get broadband services at a mere 512kbps. As the technology is demonstrated in a 4-core optical fiber infrastructure to achieve the record speed, this technology can be integrated into the fiber optic infrastructure with minimal effort across the globe.
Members of the Indian broadband community welcomed this new development enthusiastically, especially given that high-speed transmission has a very pertinent use case in India.
Broadband India Forum President TV Ramachandran said that current Indian transmission systems are not equipped to handle India’s humongous data appetite which is the highest in the world. “It is interesting to note that we have 500 million or fewer users that are using the internet and this number is likely to grow,” said TV Ramachandran.
Over the past decade, intensive research has been carried out worldwide to increase the data rates in optical transmission systems using space-division multiplexing as a means to meet the exponentially increasing demand for optical data transmission.
More recently, interest in fibers with the same 125 μm cladding diameter as standard single-mode fibers has grown due to their compatibility with conventional cabling infrastructure and concerns over the mechanical reliability of larger fibers.
Recently, NICT and research groups around the world have begun to explore S-band transmission, leading to several new records for transmission capacity in optical fibers, but transmission distance has been limited to only a few tens of kilometers.
The 4-core MCF with standard cladding diameter is attractive for early adoption of SDM fibers in high-throughput, long-distance links since it is compatible with conventional cable infrastructure and is expected to have mechanical reliability comparable to single-mode fibers.
Beyond 5G, an explosive increase from new data services is expected and it is, therefore, crucial to demonstrate how new fibers can meet this demand. Hence, it is hoped that this result will help the realization of new communication systems that can support new bandwidth-hungry services.
