What’s the fastest internet speed you have used? 1Gb/s? Researchers at the National Institute of Information and Communications Technology (NICT) in Japan have broken all the previous records of internet speed by achieving 319 terabits per second (Tb/s). This is almost twice what a British team achieved last year in August at 178 Tb/s. For context, a terabit is roughly 1000 gigabit.
The test was confined in a lab where special types of equipment were made from the ground up to achieve such a record-breaking speed. The researchers used four fiber-optic cores in a cable along with all the cladding and covering while sticking to the size of conventional fiber optic cable. Apparently, the conventional fiber optic cable that you use at your home or office has a single core plus cladding and covering to protect the data against many factors including water. What’s interesting about the specialized fiber optic cable developed by the researchers in Japan is that the size is almost the same as usual fiber optic cable and that’s a feat to achieve in itself.
According to the paper filed by NICT, they used the specialized four-core fiber optic cable coiled in a simulated distance of 1864 miles or 3001 km without losing any data or speed during the transmission. The paper further adds that although the feat was impressive, achieving such a blazing fast speed was complicated and there’s still a lot of work to do.
During the experiment, researchers fired a 552-channel comb laser in the cable at multiple wavelengths that were further pushed by rare Earth material-built amplifiers to gain such an incredible speed. This indicates that it is very expensive for end-users. However, internet backbones can use it effectively since they are dependent on the quality and quantity of the data being transmitted rather than the cost.
According to NICT, the specially made four core Fiber optic cable which has the same diameter as the usual cable can be used in existing systems to gain higher throughput and internet speed. It can be used for transmitting data at an incredible speed at an incredible distance without risking data or quality loss whatsoever. The paper mentions that it can be used as a next-gen technology that can be beyond 5G in practical usage.
