Japan sets new internet speed record
Japan has reached a new milestone in internet speed. Data was experimentally transmitted at a speed of 1.02 petabits per second—the fastest in the world so far—according to Japan’s National Institute of Information and Communications Technology (NICT).
This speed means that the entire Netflix library or the vast database of English Wikipedia can be downloaded in one second. According to the research team, the test was conducted by the Photonic Network Laboratory of NICT. Japanese technology company Sumitomo Electric and several research institutes in Europe participated in it. A special optical fibre cable with 19 cores, whose diameter is only 0.125 millimetres, was used in the test. The same as conventional internet cables. To send the data, the researchers used an 86.1-kilometre-long fibre loop, which was repeated 21 times in 19 separate cores, sending 180 separate data streams simultaneously over a total distance of 1,808 kilometres. This recorded a data transfer rate of 1.86 exabits per kilometre per second, which is the highest so far.
Sumitomo Electric made the cable used in the study, and NICT built a full transmission system to send data. It used high-quality transmitters, receivers, and other high-power components. A statement from NICT said, "We wanted to prove that ultra-high-speed Internet connection over long distances is possible using the current infrastructure."
According to the calculations of the information technology website Gadget, at this speed, it is possible to download about 100 gigabytes of information from the English Wikipedia 10,000 times in just one second. You can also download an 8K video file with a lot of detail at the same time. Regarding the significance of this research, technologists say that Japan has once again proven that it is possible to significantly increase the speed of the Internet without changing the infrastructure alone. Data usage is increasing rapidly due to the spread of video streaming, cloud computing, and artificial intelligence-based technologies around the world. In such a reality, this effort to increase the capacity of fibre infrastructure to ensure high-speed, reliable connections is considered an important step forward. However, NICT has not yet confirmed when this technology will be open to general users.
