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The multi-gigabit internet speed records of a decade ago now seem woefully inadequate. Motherboard reports that scientists from Japan’s National Institute of Information and Communications Technology (NICT) have broken the Internet transfer record by mixing data at 319 Tbps. For the context, it is almost twice as fast as the 179 Tbps that a team of British and Japanese researchers managed in August 2020.
NTIC achieved the feat by modernizing virtually every stage of the pipeline. The fiber optic line had four cores instead of one, and the researchers fired a 552-channel multi-wavelength comb laser with the help of rare earth amplifiers. While the test was strictly limited to the lab, the team used coiled fiber to transfer data at a simulated distance of 1,864 miles without losing signal quality or speed.
As with many of these experiments, it could be a long time before this performance has a significant impact. While quad-core fiber would work with existing networks, the system could easily be very expensive. You are more likely to see initial use with Internet backbones and other large networking projects where capacity matters more than cost.
However, this could have an impact on your internet usage. NICT researchers are considering their next-generation “beyond 5G” (like 6G) fiber manufacturing technologies to be more practical. You can see the benefits just by switching to faster internet access that doesn’t choke when there’s an influx of users.
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