The need for speed on the Internet has never been greater, and not just because of video streaming or game streaming. From mass video conferencing to real-time collaboration on a multimedia project, much of today’s society has become dependent on the Internet. While network operators and carriers drive 5G and WiFi 6, computer scientists and engineers have their sights set on even larger numbers, for which Japan’s National Institute of Information and Communication Technology (NICT) has just set a record.
Last year, the faster internet transfer speed was achieved through a collaboration between the UK and Japan. They were able to hit a staggering 178 Tbps in August 2020, but that has now been dwarfed by the NICT’s performance. The world record for the fastest internet data transfer speed is 319 TB / s.
Of course, they didn’t reach this number without hard work, and the NICT had to innovate at every level of the data transmission pipeline. It started with a four-core fiber optic cable that kept the same size as a standard single-core fiber. A 552-channel comb was then used to fire lasers of different wavelengths through amplifiers made from rare earth minerals. In other words, it is by no means a cheap experiment.
Of course, all of this had to be done by the NICT in a controlled laboratory environment, and no elements of real environments were available to it. For example, to simulate a distance of 3001 km, the researchers had to wrap the fiber optic cable. This also resulted in the signal quality or speed not being compromised while the data passed through the cable.
Needless to say, you won’t be seeing this technology in the real world any time soon. The cost of this facility alone is already prohibitive, and the technology would benefit Internet backbones more than any other application. However, upgrading these backbones would also benefit consumers in the long run, especially when 6G eventually begins.
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