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| Japan breaks the internet speed record |
Now the internet speed record of a few gigabits ten years ago seems to be very slow. Researchers at Japan's National Institute of Information and Communication Technology (NICT) broke the internet speed record at 319 Tbps.
That's double the internet speed record of 178 terabytes per second set by Japanese and British engineers a year ago.
The speed test is performed in the laboratory using advanced fiber optic technology. Many fiber optic cables have a single core and a large amount of padding or coating to protect the internal data.
The NTIC system uses the pilot thread of a quad-core fiber optic cable contained in a cable approximately the same size as a standard fiber optic line.
In a research paper accompanying the experiment, NTIC said: “Quad-core optical fibers with a standard coating diameter are attractive for early adoption of optical fibers in high-speed and long-range connectors. This is because it is compatible with conventional cabling. It is compatible with infrastructure. Those of single-core optical fibers.
ICT transmits data through the coiled part of the glass fiber and simulates a transmission distance of 3,001 kilometers without reducing signal or speed. But there is still much to be done. The process of achieving this speed is also very complex.
break internet speed records
The researchers used 552-channel multi-wavelength lasers to achieve extremely high speeds using amplifiers made of rare earth metals.
Engineers envisioned this primarily as a way to quickly transfer data over long distances, rather than enabling instant video game downloads.
However, the team sees the main innovation in the new quad-core optical cable they have developed. It is the same size as a standard fiber optic cable.
NTIC believes that it can be easily implemented in existing systems to dramatically increase speeds. "Standard pipe diameters and quad-core fibers can be connected to existing equipment," he said.
He added, "I hope that these fibers can achieve real high-speed transmission in a short period of time. This helps achieve the basic communication system necessary for the spread of new communication services beyond 5G."
As with many of these experiments, it may take a long time for this performance to have any measurable impact.