Fiber optics is a technology with a great future. In fact, it is difficult to know the real speed limits of the fiber thanks to the continuous advances that take place. For that reason, it should be the priority technology for Internet access, forgetting about HFCs and other alternatives that do not guarantee such a bright future. In addition, progress occurs regularly and today we see how the NICT (National Institute of Information and Communications Technology) of Japan smashes the Internet speed record achieving a total of 319 terabits per second at 3,000 km.
Fiber optic speed records keep dropping like flies. To date, the record was set at 178 Tbps and had been achieved less than a year ago. The figure that we know today is almost double that previous record, which shows the magnitude of what has been achieved. In addition, it is also 7 times higher than the 44.2 Tb / s that had been achieved previously.
To put the figure in context, the fastest connection in the world for a home or business is 10 Gb / s in Japan or the United States, but these are very special connections. The normal thing is to have a ceiling of 1 Gbps for homes. Other very important organisms, such as NASA , are capable of running at 400 Gb / s. These two figures show what it means to have achieved 319 terabits per second, in addition to being compatible (in principle) with the current infrastructure.
This is how this bestial speed has been achieved
As we have highlighted, the speed record was achieved using the current fiber optic infrastructure, but adding some advanced technologies. Roughly, we can say that they have used 4 fiber cores instead of one as currently. The signals have been transmitted through them using a technique called wavelength-division multiplexing (WDM) .
The system begins with the combined sending of a laser signal that generates 552 channels with different wavelengths . The light then passes through dual polarization modulators that slow down some wavelengths to create different signal sequences. Each of these signal sequences is “fed” into one of the four fiber cores.
The information “journey” is 70km until it reaches the optical amplifiers that keep the signal strong over long distances. From here it goes through two new types of fiber amplifiers, one formed with erbium and the other with thulium, to arrive at a Raman amplifier module. This is repeated as many times as necessary to complete the 3,000 kilometers of wiring.
All the details of the record in the National Institute of Information and Communications Technology .
