Researchers in Australia have produced a world record internet speed of 44.2 terabits per second, enabling consumers to stream 1,000 HD videos in only one second.
A team from Monash, Swinburne and RMIT universities used a micro-comb optical chip comprising hundreds of infrared lasers to move data through Melbourne ‘s current communications network.
The fastest consumer Internet bandwidth anywhere in the world is actually in Singapore, with an average download limit of 197.3 megabits per second ( Mbps).
Throughout Australia, the average download speed is 43.4 Mbps. That is 1 million times slower than the speed reached in the current test.
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“At the time, there’s a bit of a global rush to deliver this technology to the commercial scale. Besides, the micro-comb at its core is usable across a vast array of current technologies,” said Dr. Bill Corcoran of Monash University to The Independent.
“I ‘d say we ‘d be willing to see technologies like ours open to testing laboratories in two or three years. Also, there could be an actual market deployment in around five years.”
Pressure on internet speed
In recent months, the coronavirus lockdown has put significant pressure on the internet infrastructure.
In Europe, streaming companies had to downgrade their services in March to deal with rising traffic. Netflix and YouTube were among those that decided to reduce image quality for consumers.
According to the researchers, the introduction of the micro-comb tool will solve this issue.
“Daytime data demands in the United Kingdom have more than increased. Moreover, extra measures have been made to ensure the connections are stable,” said Dr. Corcoran.
“What this additional usage offers us is an early preview into the bandwidth struggles the networks may see in only a few years, particularly when we start getting on-line hungry tech devices like 5G, self-driving vehicles and the ‘Internet of Things’ more generally.
“We would also need ingenious compact technology, such as our fingernail-sized system, to gracefully increase the data-carrying ability of our networks. And to reduce volume and power usage, as well as prices, while growing total traffic speeds. Our presentation also reveals that the system we built is compliant with the fiber-optic network that is already in operation.
The results have been reported on Friday in the journal Nature Communications.
