Record-Breaking New Fiber Optic Cables Transmit 100 Terabits Per Second

Combine the technologies and get 400 Petabits Per Second.

Clay, Are you serious?
"neither of these technologies is particularly easy to integrate into the current infrastructure, and difficulty notwithstanding there isn’t a real commercial need for these high capacities--they simply far outstrip commercial data demand."

Okay. "there isn't a real commercial need" that statement is just..."set sail for epic fail"....

This tech needs to be implemented yesterday. Just talk to ANY INTERNET SERVICE PROVIDER. Torrent transfers alone make this technology "COMMERCIALLY NEEDED". When was the last time you were in a remote area and tried to access your GMAIL and the service towers are too slow to get basic data services? Not to mention the cost that goes with said basic data via roaming. I know i am touching on various other topics that boil down to commercial greed. But to say that this tech isn't needed is absolutely preposterous!

It may indeed not make it inside my computer any time soon, but simply getting that information to my gigabit Ethernet card so i can use my full bandwidth alone is a need! I already have to wait too long as it is for information to reach my computer, not to mention how god awful slow it is to return that data to the internet.

If we had this tech now, then perhaps the outrageous prices of data access might fall to levels low enough to communicate with others using true loss less video and audio communication. Anyone who says faster isn't better nor needed just plain fails in my book.

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Chance Favors the Prepared Mind...-Louis Pasteur

this is awesome. we obviously need this now. i bet it would cost alot.

That would be so awesome if we could actually get speeds that fast!!!

@TXSam, you are brilliant!

That could probably handle the uncompressed data stream from two Red Digital 28K cameras to the 3D 28K (28000x9334) UltraWide 3:1 98" 300ppi Retina Display OLED TV in my living room at 240Hz, plus a couple others in the bedrooms and by my solid gold hot tub. Finally. What took them so long?

We definitely need these faster speeds! There are so many things on the internet that I would like to do but usually don't end up doing, with some things I don't deal with at all because of how much of a hassle they are from being so slow! We need this integrated A.S.A.P.!!!

If they integrated this now, how much would internet cost? Lets see... Using qwest's plan of $45 for 40 mb/s, lets see... $112,500,000?!?!?!?!

Apologies for the flamage....i hit that comment and my Emotional response went into overdrive. Then i read the rest of your comments....

My personal data usage is typical for me. When i joined ClearWire for my data services, and got throttled after the second day. I was pissed. They said i was a heavy data user. Then i went on the forums and found out that almost everyone was a heavy data user. And that is just 1 ISP.

Ground based communications are indeed less expensive, but the wireless carriers are killing us. Something has gotta give.

Again...apologies for flame.

Combine them! That's what I thought too, when I read this article! Here comes 711.9 Terabits per second of data over just one cable!

I think Google will actually be the first company to utilize this new tech. Shows how much ISPs REALLY care about giving us good service. It's all about the bottom line for them...

What the hell do you mean, no commercial need?! Where do you live that you have more bandwidth than you need? It takes me 10 hours (through a so-called "high-speed connection") to upload a 1GB clip! I have to do this for work... many people have to do this, or similar, for work! Many more people would love to sync their larger files to an external source for backup, hell, just to watch a youtube clip at a busy time of day is frustrating! Video Conferencing would take off more if it was better quality (Esp. over iPhones and Andoids) I know it won't make it to a pc, but my ISP sure could use this so that my speeds stay as promised, or be able to offer some better packages in my area! (Which is Studio City, CA, BTW, not even just a burg in a remote area!!)

Our Computer speeds double every 18 months (approx.), but my ISP hasn't seen an increase in speed in my area since 2004!

...and the weirdest statement of all... "...we can’t even think of how they could possibly be useful" you can't?! Do you own a computer and do you know what the internet is? ...besides a series of tubes.

|cynicism| we don't need no stinking bandwidth |/cynicism|

I see the point about cost VS. value for commercial use of this much speed.. I think most corporations and small business which are a major driving force of our economy would suffice with 1tb/sec speed (aside from research companies, entertainment industry,etc...)

But! I do think that the Auto & Airline manuf. should pick up the tab on this. Isn't the fundemental problem with self driving cars,airplanes the infrastructure to handle that much data? Well the all you need to do is build your own !!!
-JohnnieG

@gonzoj89, I like where you are coming from. Let's see, how could we build our own terabit network.

1. Perhaps we could hack a DVD and pull the laser out or use
IrDa.
2. Let's say we used 4, for East, West, North & South.
3. Everyone mounted one of these to their roof allowing for
better line of sight communication.
4. Then we would have to come up with the cheapest way of getting
all that bandwidth inside the computer, possibly a triple
channel DDR3 memory module adapter.
5 ... add your suggestions here..

Awesome! Now I can illegally download movies faster than the entertainment companies can track me!

People seem to forget that there is a difference between "need" and "greed".

If anything- the ones who actually have a need for this technology would be government/intelligence agencies, the military, and police/law enforcement.

Your torrents can wait.

while it may not be needed now, in the future it will be, but it will be nothing more than a nice idea unless the entire telecommunication and internet networks around the world are using one of these technologies. after all there is no point in pouring a gallon of liquid into a shot glass.
It would take years and years just to put the infrastructure in place before any of us mere mortals could get to enjoy the benefits. Will these speeds still be possible when satellites are brought into the equation. there are too many bottlenecks for it to be practical in the near future.

Does anyone know what the theoretical limits are for transmission speeds. I presume there comes a point when light just isn't fast enough.

I remember well when modems were 2400bps and that was fast compared to the original ones I had seen. No matter what speeds we end up with, demand will increase to fill the space and make it slow again.

now i will have to buy some more storage space to fit those 360 DVD's a second.

I think the people here need to get real. There is no commercial need for this technology as it is. There is need for technology that is perhaps 10 times better or 100 times better than currently tech, but the stuff that has been talked about here is far out of the realm for any of your use. Please be realistic.

@dreamer555, somewhere around 1.2 Terabits using laser line of sight.
@RisingPhoenix, enlighten yourself for a moment. Consider if you are using the internet for things other than downloading video, music and playing games. What if you were actually using it as a tool? Instead of having search results come up and having to go to each site, you could download the entire scope of knowledge (or max storage size of your machine) in one second. That would include all reference, all videos, all images. You could then run whatever application you wanted (some kind of Google desktop search algorithm) that could then sort, survey and analyze the data to your hearts content.

Don't forget, the internet, your router and server all run on electricity. The less time they are transmitting, the less energy they use.

What if the early industrialist said, 'we don't need automobiles, the package doesn't have to get there until tomorrow'.

Everyone arguing about how the commercial market either does or does not need such bandwidth really needs to properly define 'need' or use different words.

Do we even need what we have right now? I think you will find the answer to be no, we don't. Do we like it and does it help with medical/political/entertainment/etc... factors? Yep, sure does. With such a dramatic increase in bandwidth as presented in this post it really is difficult to think of how we could effectivly utilize it. But that doesn't mean it isn't utilizable, just as during the invent of meg level ram people wouldn't think even remotely that we'd have operating systems that would partition gigs of dedicated memory.

Don't sound silly by saying we NEED this, and don't sound silly by saying we couldn't USE it either. Be glad in the fact that the technology is there and immagine what we could DO with it!

@All4it

I already heavily use the internet as a tool. I don't play games, but I do watch videos and listen to music. The majority of my use of the internet is as a tool to help me work. And it works just fine doing what it does now.

We have search engines for a reason; to do the job that you speak of without having to download the internet beforehand.

Faster internet is always nicer, but I'm simply supporting the author's comment that this is far out of the realm of what we need now.

@RisingPhoenix, it is good to know that you are using it as a tool. I agree that online search engines are very good, but there are actually programs out there that do a better job, are customizable and employ learning algorithms.

I have to respectfully disagree with your last statement and the point of view of the author. It is not out of the realm of what we need now, it is just out of the realm of what you need now.

Don't see the efficiency whatsoever in downloading the internet only to comb through it later (or have software do it for you) to find what you need. That's akin to buying everything in the supermarket and then sorting it out later to get what you want. Unless you're a governmental agency, it's out of the realm of your needs as well. 100 Terabits per second? 3 months of HD video in a second? Please, get practical.

This may not be practical for the individual but how many towns are too small to get the 30-40mb connections bigger cities are getting, you could run a back bone that would link 3-4 towns together the municipalities could share the expense and the towns would then have the bandwidth needed for schools fire/emergency/police and those if us stuck with a 1-3 mb connection could finally get a decent speed, i currently run about 2.5 mb and a 800ms ping because the only services in my town are satellite services. If this tech could be made financially viable for a city/county to implement for municipal internet access the effects could be amazing.

This is pretty cool but I don't need fiber optic cables this fast right now, what devices are capable for these speeds? I go mainly for pricing and quality, thats why I go to www.magnusdeal.com

I remember reading a research study that Japan (before tsunami)had already fiber lines running on residences (homes). I have to agree that the US in terms of commercial and general population has no "need" for it (supporting the author here) however, being an IT contractor for the military, this is one of the biggest issue that connecting many governmental and military agencies could not be possible specially certain regions that commercial establishments are not authorized. Using repeated ATM switches to connect several sites or regions are the most soluble and realistic endeavors. In this case, it will help greatly if this is implemented specially training organizations that uses simulated training scenarios digitally and online that can't be applied to commercial fiber lines. Another suggestion I can give is to start running these fiber lines on allied countries (underwater cables) like the Philippines, Australia, etc. which receives a fraction of the data speed. These cables need additional upgrades. Unless of course, as Americans, we can always be greedy and forget other countries and lets run these fiber for all of our homes.....

I think I'm seeing two problems in the comments.

With the argument that there is "no current need", half of you are trying to argue, in effect, that the internet is not needed. I mean heck, humanity survived thousands of years without it, it must not be a need. The other half seems to be assuming that a single individual needs that much bandwidth and arguing against it.

In reality the bandwidth is needed, but in the internet backbone, definitely not by any individual users. Right now many of the big ISPs are complaining because their 10mbps P2P users are hogging the available bandwidth.

I don't work in this field, but from what I know the backbone channels are running around 40Gbps now days (per channel). And for a rough summary, that 40Gbps is then divided up among various local ISPs who then might divide it up again to their various customers. The only way to get more bandwidth in the backbone is to lay more fiber.

If we increase the bandwidth of the current fiber by 400x with a single upgrade then the the ISPs can effectively get 50-100x more bandwidth for nearly the same price, and hopefully pass a similar 50x increase to the end customers (for the same price). ISPs would obviously have to replace the crappy last mile DSL technology, but if all customers eventually get fiber to the home, then 100Mbps or 1Gbps connections will need some serious backbone bandwidth.

Local ISPs may actually be suffering from low bandwidth or maybe it's just hand waving so they can change their pricing structure. But in either case a bandwidth increase of that magnitude would decrease prices or increase speeds for everyone.

Then again, maybe the internet isn't "a need" at all so any technology based on it is just a luxury.

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