Japanese scientists at the National Institute of Information and Communications Technology have achieved data transfer over the internet at a speed of 319Tbps. For context, that is almost 7 million times faster than the average internet speed in the United States, and about 24 million times faster than the average internet speed in India. This not only breaks the global record for the highest internet speed but sets it at double the previous record.
NICT, short for National Institute of Information and Communications Technology has achieved a speed of 319Tbps, which seems to be the new world record for highest internet speed. They managed to achieve it by upgrading every stage of the optics pipeline. As per a report on Motherboard, the fibre optic line was upgraded to four cores instead of one. Additionally, the researchers used a 552-channel comb laser, which was fired at several wavelengths and was aided by rare earth amplifiers. While the test was conducted indoors in a lab, the test transferred data through a coiled fibre
The previous record achieved in collaboration with UK and Japan was 178 Tb/s. The feat was made possible using optical fibres that carry data using light as opposed to normal copper cables. They also took advantage of specialised erbium and thulium amplifiers to boost range and speed.
The internet speed achieved by scientists in Japan is approximately 16,000 times faster than the speed of 5G technology, which is still available in some parts of the world. However, to implement the experiment at a national or even a regional scale, the setup will be extremely costly. One of the key aspects of a large scale internet setup is the cost, as users cannot pay a very steep amount. The scientists at NICT envision the technology to be beyond 5G and more practical than 5G.
Interestingly, the team still believes that there is more speed that can be achieved and are already working on ways to improve the transmissions further.
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