301 terabits through fiber optic connection: record with existing network technology

You may have already guessed that your own Internet connection doesn't have to be as slow as it sometimes appears. Even the average value, which is almost 250 megabits per second in the US, for example, is sufficient for almost all requirements.

After all, you could watch ten streams in 4K quality at the same time or send around 10,000 emails per second. Of course, it is faster with a fiber optic connection, which typically offers up to one gigabit or even more.

However, this is no comparison to the 301 terabits per second achieved at Aston University in Birmingham, England. This corresponds to over 1 million average connections. According to the university, as many as 4.5 million connections would be needed in the UK.

The total bandwidth of all households in a city with 1 million residents would therefore be nowhere near enough to achieve this transmission rate. And this despite the fact that it was also achieved with a normal fiber optic network.

This required newly developed equipment on both sides. However, these only had to be able to transmit and receive on a different wavelength. Typically, C- and L-band are used for transmission.

The researchers, however, used the E-band. This is not only three times as wide as one of the other bands. Thanks to a shorter wavelength and therefore higher frequency, more information can be packed into it.

Until now, the band has been avoided because fiber optic cables have increased attenuation in this wavelength range. More energy has to be used, and the range is reduced.

This problem has also been solved, albeit after several years of research. As a result, there should soon be more than enough bandwidth available for future developments and the increased data exchange that this will undoubtedly entail - with a domestic fiber optic connection.