Japan announced that a team of engineers from the National Institute of Information and communication technology (NICT) research group had achieved a record-setting internet speed of 319 Tb/s doubling the previous record. The previous record was set in 2020 when UK and Japanese engineers partnered to make 178 TB/s connection a reality.
NIST scientists used optical fibers. Small tubes that use light to pass information, which is necessary to achieve the record. Regular copper cables couldn’t carry such speed and would require much more complex and strong infrastructure to work.
In the abstract of the paper titled, Demonstration of World Record: 319Tb/s transmission over 3,001 km with 4 core fiber, researchers said that besides C- and L-bands that are usually used for high data rate and long haul transmission, the team also utilized the transmission bandwidth of S-band, which had remained underutilized beyond the single-span transmission.
Researchers added that the 4 core optical fiber, with standard cladding diameter, can be cabled with existing equipment, and hoped it will enable practical high data rate transmission soon. The new research, they said, will also contribute to the realization of the backbone communications system, which is necessary for the spread of new communication services Beyond 5G.
We can’t tell enough how fast this transmission speed is. It is nearly double the previous record of 178 Tb/s, which was set in 2020. And it is seven times the speed of the earlier record 44.2 Tb/s, set with an experimental photonic chip.
The new system begins its transmission process with a 552-channel comb laser fired at various wavelengths. This is then set through dual-polarization modulation, such that some wavelengths go before others, to generate multiple signal sequences- each of which is in turn directed into one of the four cores within the optical fiber.
After this, signal sequences are sent into another segment of optical fiber, and then the entire process repeats, enabling the researchers to send data over a distance of 1,864.7 miles. Crucially, the novel four-core optical fiber possesses the same diameter as a conventional single-core fiber, bracketing the protective cladding around it. It is an exciting time to live.
