A team of researchers from the Technical University of Denmark (DTU) have announced that they have achieved transfer rates of 43Tbps over a single optical fibre. Extremetech translated this feat into real-world equivalents; DTU's network could transfer a 1GB DVD rip in .02 milliseconds or 5.4TB in a single full second.
The new record set by the Danish team using just a single optical fibre and single laser transmitter easily trumps the established Karlsruhe Institut für Technologie, Germany's 32Tbps achievement. DTU has previously claimed the world records for network transfer speed in 2009 and 2011 only to be elbowed aside by competitors such as KIT.
While DTU was very proud to reclaim the top spot there is a serious need for this high speed technology to power the online world. The researchers are looking at helping to accommodate the "immense growth of data traffic on the internet, which is estimated to be growing by 40–50 per cent annually". Additionally the power consumption of the internet as a whole is now on a par with the transport industry (including shipping and aviation). With the internet industry being a much faster growing one, DTU also looked at reducing energy consumption whilst increasing the bandwidth.
A key component in DTU's new record breaking fibre network is a new type of optical fibre from Japanese telecoms firm NTT. This cable uses seven threads in the space that there is traditionally just a single optical fibre.
It's great to see the cutting edge advancing and that the research teams involved have their eyes on very practical considerations such as the size of the cables and power consumption.
