Fiber Optic Cable Breaks data transfer limit to 14 terabits per second

Fiber optic cable has become the Bonneville Salt Flats of the Internet, with universities, labs, and corporations vying for the fastest data transfer rate crown. Late last week, the Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Corporation laid claim to the speed throne with a 14 terabits per second transmission over a single 100-mile fiber optic line. That number easily surpassed the previous record of 10Tbps and demonstrates how far we've come in just three years, when we wrote about a 5.44Gbps transmission.

To put the transmission into perspective, 14Tbps is enough bandwidth to download 140 high-definition movies in a single second or deliver all of YouTube's daily traffic in under 15 seconds. It's also not likely to happen again in the near future outside of a lab or a single, dedicated line like this. However, NTT's experiment does offer some hope for increased broadband speeds, even if they fall short of the stratospheric heights seen in its demonstration.

Although much of NTT's network consists of fiber with a 1Tbps capacity, the company says that it is rapidly approaching capacity due to the increased popularity of broadband. NTT's experiment was noteworthy in that it offers hope for increasing capacity on current fiber networks by more efficiently using the available spectrum and some clever use of amplifiers.

While broadband users in Japan and South Korea enjoy 1Gbps connections, the fiber upgrade is just getting started in the US. Even when the fiber does make it to US homes, speeds top out at 50Mbps down and 5Mbps up in the case of Verizon's new FiOS network. While significantly faster than current offerings, Verizon is limited by the need to reserve significant bandwidth for its TV programming. AT&T customers aren't so fortunate, as the company's decision to run fiber to the node—instead of to the home—means that they will be limited to 6Mbps.

More efficient use of current fiber networks is possible, as NTT's experiement demonstrates, but being able to download even a single HD movie in the blink of an eye is still a ways off.

[via arstechnica.com]