With a staggering 319 terabits per second, Japan currently owns the global record for fastest internet speed. A group of experts from Japan’s National Institute of Information and Communications Technology revealed the development (NICT).
This outperforms the previous world record of 178 terabits per second set by researchers at University College London in August 2020. The NICT team in Japan has nearly quadrupled this amount.
The contemporary internet is built on fiber-optic connections that transmit data as light pulses. Light has wave-like qualities, and each wave has a peak, just like waves on water, and the wavelength is the distance between each peak. As a result, increasing the number of wavelengths accessible increases the quantity of data that can be transferred over a fibre optic connection.
That’s precisely what the Japanese scientists accomplished. They added an entire band of wavelengths (the S-band) across a distance of 3,001 kilometres, but the challenge was to travel through a fibre link for a greater distance. Because long-distance fibre cables require amplifiers, the researchers introduced new materials called Erbium and Thulium as amplifiers.
The researchers were able to accommodate the S-band across a considerably greater distance using these two materials and a process called Raman amplification.
However, it’s important noting that this type of study demonstrates what’s conceivable rather than what’s practical in the end. Although the newly found technology may be integrated into existing infrastructure, it would need the replacement of current cables.
Regardless, it is a significant step in the right direction, but it will be several years before this new technology can be used on a daily basis.