Scientists achieve Transfer Rate of 1.4 Terabyte/Sec in London

The Internet

The joint test by British Telecom (BT) and French networking equipment company Alcatel-Lucent achieved Internet transfer rates of upto 1.4 terabits per second, or 1,83,501Mbps, on the existing fibre network in London.The test was conducted in October and November last year, on a line from BT Tower in central London and the company's research campus near Ipswich.

This system is being touted as an important breakthrough in telecommunications as it will solve the conventional issues in wired communications and provide increased bandwidth using existing infrastructure.

There are faster methods of transmitting data - such as the use of complex laser technology - but this is the first test to achieve such high speeds in "real world" conditions, outside testing labs, 'BBC News' reported.

Kevin Drury, optical marketing leader at Alcatel-Lucent, likened the development to reducing space between lanes on a busy motorway, enabling more lanes of traffic to flow through the same area.In internet terms, this would mean, for example, streaming video would get a large, wide lane, while accessing standard web pages would need only a small part of the fibre's capacity.

This speed will allow a user to download 44 high definition movies in one go.

source: Times of India.