A study presented at the International
Conference on Fiber Optic Communication in June has revealed that Japanese
engineers recently broke the world record for the highest internet speed,
achieving a data transfer speed of 319 terabits per second (Tb/s). The new
record was set on a fibre cable that stretched over 3,000 kilometres, and it
appears to be compatible with the current cable infrastructure.
The transmission speed is nearly twice as
fast as the previous record of 178 Tb/s, which was set less than a year ago and
seven times faster than the previous record of 44.2 Tb/s set by an experimental
photonic chip.
The American space agency NASA itself uses
a pretty basic speed of 400 gigabits per second (Gb/s). However, the new record
rises high above the current speed available to the customers—in regions of
Japan, New Zealand and the United States, the fastest home internet connections
reach 10 Gb/s.
This new achievement was made possible by
combining existing fibre optic infrastructure with more advanced technologies.
Instead of the traditional standard core, the research team used four
"cores," which are glass tubes placed in the fibres that transmit
data. Using a technique called wavelength division multiplexing (WDM), the
signals are then separated into numerous wavelengths and broadcast at the same
time. To carry more data, a rarely used third "band" is added, and
the distance is increased using various optical amplification technologies.
The new system starts the transmission
process with a 552-channel cam laser fired at various wavelengths. Dual
polarisation modulation is then applied to this light, delaying some
wavelengths to create distinct signal sequences, and after that, each of these
signal sequences is fed into one of the optical fibre's four cores. Data is
transferred via 70 kilometres of optical fibre until it reaches optical
amplifiers, which boost the signal on its long journey. The signal passes through
two new types of fibre amplifiers, one doped in thulium and the other in
erbium, before continuing on its path in the traditional Raman amplification
process.
According to Japan's National Institute of
Information and Communications Technology (NICT), the signal patterns are then
guided into a fresh piece of optical fibre, and the team of Japanese
researchers was able to send data over a distance of 3,001 kilometres by
repeating this process.
After the protective cladding is taken into
account, the four-core optical fibre has the same diameter as a typical
single-core fibre. It means that the new method will be considerably easier to
integrate into existing infrastructure than prior technical overhauls of social
information systems.
However, not only have Japanese scientists
blown the 2020 record out of the water, but they have done so with a novel
technical solution that can be easily integrated into the modern fibre-optic
infrastructure.
Japan's primary national research institute
for information and communications NICT stated that it would "continue to
develop wide-band, long-distance transmission systems and explore how to
further increase the transmission capacity of low-core-count multi-core fibres
and other novel SDM fibres. Further, we will work to extend the transmission
range to trans-oceanic distances".
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