Internet speeds are becoming more essential than ever as we progress towards a digital world, thanks to advances in modern, web-based technology. Facebook is aiming to provide high-speed internet to all parts of the world using robots, but Japan recently set a new internet speed record, breaking the previous mark by more than a factor of 10.
Optical fiber network with four cores in Japan
Image Credits: Beebom
NICT researchers in Japan have constructed a 4-core optical cable that delivers internet rates of up to 319 gigabytes per second (Tbps). There was a prior record of 178 Tbps in August of last year. This new record is almost twice as fast!
Recently, the researchers published a press statement announcing their accomplishment. This technology is based on a 4-core optical fiber, with a standard cladding diameter, to take advantage of greater transmission bandwidth, as per the press release. There are four cores in a fiber-optic cable, which was improved by the researchers. Unbeknownst to some, a basic internet cable employs a single core technology.
The researchers also highlight that the information and data delivered across large distances of up to 3,001 km did not slow down the internet speed. The researchers replicated the long-distance system in the lab using coiled cabling.
How capable is 319 Tbps Internet speed?
Image Credits: Beebom
I’ll give you a quick sense of what you could accomplish with internet speeds that fast. If you have 319 Tbps of internet speed, you can download more than 7,000 high-definition movies in only one second. This means that with such high-speed internet, you can download all of Netflix’s 3,781 movies in less than a second. But the researchers didn’t build the 4-core optical cable so that you could download whole libraries of movies and TV episodes from the Internet. As they point out, the high-speed internet network was designed to handle large volumes of important data over vast distances, which is why it is so expensive.
It should be noted that further modifications are needed before deploying the 4-core optical fiber system in a real-world environment. On top of that, the cost of establishing such a large-scale network might be rather high. “Standard cladding”, which implies that it can be supported by the existing infrastructure, allows for the installation of the new 4-core lines.
