A team of scientists has created the fastest ever internet connection, using lines composed of commercial grade optics to hit speeds of around 1.4 terabits per second.
Believed to be the fasted connection ever developed, the advance would mean, hypothetically, that a user would be able to download more than 40 HD films in a second, or every English language page on Wikipedia in just 0.006 seconds.
To create the connection, a team comprising experts from BT and Alcatel-Lucent, a French telecommunications equipment company, used an existing stretch of fibre optic cable spanning the 410km between London’s BT Tower and the company’s research site in Suffolk.
A new protocol called ‘Flexigrid’ allowed the researchers to overlay a number of transmission channels using the one connection, leading to a channel made up of seven 200-gigabit-per-second connections.
The fact that the team was able to hit the superfast speeds using existing lines could be considered integral, since it means that the UK’s telecoms companies would be able to meet the country’s growing demand for faster connections without having to replace the existing optical fibres.
Faster connections for users and businesses operating online can only be a good thing, as the process of accessing e-stores and the content of news providers becomes streamlined further, and brands have more room for creativity in their approaches to webdesign.
However, despite the UK’s generally internet savvy and tablet-loving populace, studies have shown that Great Britain is not as great as other parts of the world when it comes to mobile connection quality.
One mobile operator in South Korea, for instance, recently announced plans to deliver a new 300mbps connection for users in the capital, Seoul, by the end of the year. By comparison, the fastest 4G service of one of the UK’s biggest operators, EE, is only able to offer 60mbps speeds.
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