319 terabits – great Scott! Boffins in Japan speed along information superhighway at new world record
- Reference: 1626699790
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2021/07/19/319_terabits_internet_speed/
- Source link:
The 3,001km (1,864 miles) optical fibre was designed by engineers at the National Institute of Information and Communications Technology (NICT) Network Research Institute.
The boffins used 4 cores within the fibre to transmit the data, and applied wavelength-division multiplexing (WDM), allowing multiple wavelengths to be sent simultaneously over a single strand of fibre. The individual WDM channels, numbering 552 in this case, were then modulated to form multiple signal sequences at alternate intervals.
[1]
The team employed a band that has never before been used in for long distance transmissions before, the S-band ( [2]1,460-1,530nm) , alongside the usual C and L-bands.
[3]The good optics of silicon photonics: Light sailing serenely down a fibre
[4]Cisco intros desktop switches, one with USB-C to power your laptop
[5]Record-breaking Aussie boffins send 44.2 terabits a second screaming down 75km of fiber from single chip
[6]Cisco slips on a Tolkien ring: One chip design to rule them all, one design to find them. One design to bring them all...
Every 70km of the experimental set-up, the signal was subjected to amplifiers doped with rare earth ions, some with thulium, others with erbium. The boffins also used Raman amplification distributed along the transmission fibre itself to boost the signal.
The researchers said the system was compatible with modern-day infrastructure and shouldn't take long to adopt because the fibre still has a standard outer diameter of 0.125mm.
[7]
[8]
But while it may look like your normal fibre from the outside, the transmission rate is 79 per cent faster than the previous world record [9]set at University College London (UCL) in August 2020 with a data transmission rate of 178Tbps.
While these fibres won't be making it into homes any time soon, they'll likely benefit the wider networking structure.
[10]
In their canned statement, NICT [11]said :
[It] is hoped that such fibers can enable practical high data-rate transmission in the near-term, contributing to the realization of the backbone communications system, necessary for the spread of new communication services Beyond 5G.
The results of this experiment were published at the [12]International Conference on Optical Fiber Communication in June and announced in English this week. ®
Get our [13]Tech Resources
[1] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/networks&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=2&c=2YPWhowKLl1pa5RfT6-e@MwAAAME&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D2%26raptor%3Dcondor%26pos%3Dtop%26test%3D0
[2] https://www.nict.go.jp/en/press/2021/07/td6sk600000050y1-img/20210709-08.png
[3] https://www.theregister.com/2021/02/01/the_good_optics_of_silicon/
[4] https://www.theregister.com/2021/01/28/cisco_desktop_catalyst_switches/
[5] https://www.theregister.com/2020/05/22/optical_chip_fiber_speed_record/
[6] https://www.theregister.com/2019/12/11/cisco_silicon_architecture/
[7] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/networks&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44YPWhowKLl1pa5RfT6-e@MwAAAME&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[8] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/networks&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33YPWhowKLl1pa5RfT6-e@MwAAAME&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[9] https://www.ucl.ac.uk/news/2020/aug/ucl-engineers-set-new-world-record-internet-speed
[10] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/networks&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44YPWhowKLl1pa5RfT6-e@MwAAAME&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[11] https://www.nict.go.jp/en/press/2021/07/12-1.html
[12] https://www.ofcconference.org/en-us/home/schedule/?day=Friday#f3b.3
[13] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
Re: using national stereotypes here
No, I knew it meant that they had finally found the benefits of the FSM & discovered how His Noodlyness can improve every day life for everyone by boosting our bandwidth.
Re: using national stereotypes here
Never mind that. Can it play Crysis?
Why do you need to use amplifiers on an optic fibre? Surely light doesn't lose it's strength like electro-magnetic stuff? Anybody?
I have no expertise here, so what follows is pure conjecture.
I would guess that you still get attenuation of one form or another. There is a chance that a photon may impact the side wall of the fibre and be absorbed, rather than reflected. Or even directly impacting one of the atomic nuclei that make up the fibre. I know it's a lot less than losses in an electrical cable, but I think it would still happen.
>Surely light doesn't lose it's strength like electro-magnetic stuff?
Erm light is the original electro-magnetic stuff.
It does get absorbed along the fibre, only a bit because fibre is seriously good transparency.
The bigger problem is dispersion = light of slightly different wavelengths travels at slightly different speed in fibre (it only goes the same speed in vacuum). This means that a signal with even slight variation in wavelength will smear out from a sharp pulse into a low bump.
This is what the clever boffins have improved to get these speeds.
"The researchers said the system was compatible with modern-day infrastructure and shouldn't take long to adopt because the fibre still has a standard outer diameter of 0.125mm."
So is it using the standard everyday fibers (and fiber connectors) that are in use already or does it require special fibre or connectors? Because if the only similarity is that the core is 125 micrometers then that's not really useful for existing infrastructure.
This kind of fibre isn't exactly plug and play into a patch panel - it needs serious boffinery to splice and connect. But being able to use existing tools and splicers is nice
WAAAAH!
WANT! NOW!
When will Openreach upgrade my village? 900Mbps is so passé.
(Just noticed that after 14 years as an El Reg commentard I am now a scant 29 upvotes short of a total of 32768 ! And only 4000 down votes.
Go on, help me over that line...)
Re: WAAAAH!
I just hope you don't end up going from 32767 to -32768.
Re: WAAAAH!
Get in line, some of us are still using tin cans and a bit of string over here*
*ok, 2Mbps. Slight hyperbole.
using national stereotypes here
Did anyone misread "The boffins also used Raman amplification " as misusing ramen amplificatoin?