Downloading a movie in LESS than the blink of an eye
bdchronicle
THE dissatisfaction of trying to download a film online, watching the progress bar move terribly slowly, may soon be a thing of the past.
Scientists have created the world’s fastest network that can download a movie faster than you can blink.
Danish researchers achieved the feat by creating a next-generation optical fibre that transfers 43 terabits per second.
* Researchers from the Technical University of Denmark used a new type of optical fibre to transfer 43 terabits per second
* Network could be used to download a 1GB film in 0.2 milliseconds
Scientists have created the world’s fastest network that can download a movie faster than you can blink, by using a new type of optical fibre to transfer 43 terabits per second.
* Previous record-breaking network reached speeds of 32 terabits per second
* Competition in data speed is contributing to developing the technology needed to accommodate the growth of data traffic on the internet
Experts at Extreme Tech said that this means that they could use it to download a one gigabyte film in 0.2 milliseconds.
The researchers at the Technical University of Denmark have now reclaimed the record for the fastest network, having previously lost it to experts at the Karlsruhe Institut für Technologie in Germany, who created a network able to reach speeds of 32 terabits per second.
To reclaim the title for the world’s fastest network, the Danish team used single multi-core optical fibre, which was developed by Japanese firm Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Corporation (NNT).
This type of fibre contains seven cores – glass threads – instead of the single core used in standard fibres, which makes it possible to transfer more data. Incredibly, the fibre is the same width as standard fibre.
The researchers say that the worldwide competition in data speed is contributing to developing the technology needed to accommodate the growth of data traffic on the internet.
Such traffic is estimated to be growing by 40 to 50 per cent every year, and is set to soar as more people use internet-connected devices in the home and technology in cars becomes more complex.
Emissions linked to the total energy consumption of the internet as a whole make up more than two per cent of the global man-made carbon emissions, which puts it on a par with the transport industry. And these emissions are set to grow dramatically.
‘It is therefore essential to identify solutions for the internet that make significant reductions in energy consumption while simultaneously expanding the bandwidth,’ the researchers said.
OPTICAL FIBRE MADE OF THIN AIR
Physicists have claimed that optical fibre made of air could connect any point on Earth or in space, in the future.
Professor Howard Milchberg says that an ‘air waveguide’ could enhance light signals collected from distant sources, making long-distance communication possible as never before.
Super-fast Internet option favours fiber-optic broadband technology.
He believes such a breakthrough could allow colonies of people on Mars to communicate via a type of broadband, for example.
The professor of physics at the University of Maryland believes waveguides could have many applications, including long-range laser communications, detecting pollution in the atmosphere, making high-resolution topographic maps and even laser weapons.
Professor Milchberg and his team have found a way to make air behave like an optical fibre, which could guide beams of light over long distances without loss of power, according to the study in the journal Optica.
The air waveguides consist of a ‘wall’ of low-density air surrounding a core of higher density air.
Just like a conventional optical fibre, the wall has a lower refractive index than the core, guiding light along a ‘pipe’.
The physicists broke down the air with a laser to create a spark and used the air waveguide to conduct light from the spark to a detector a three feet (1 metre) away.
The signal was strong enough so that they could analyse the chemical composition of the air that produced the spark.
In fact, the signal was one-and-a-half times stronger than a signal obtained without the waveguide.
While this may not seem a lot, over distances that are 100 times longer – where an unguided signal would be severely weakened – the signal enhancement could be much greater, the scientists explained.
