65827071
submission
Mark.JUK writes:
A team of researchers at the Eindhoven University of Technology (Netherlands) have built a new fibre optic cable with seven cores, which when combined with wavelength division multiplexing (i.e. harnessing the different colors of laser light to carry data) has enabled them to deliver a transmission speed of 255 Terabits per second (Tbps) over a single 1km long link.
65502283
submission
Mark.JUK writes:
Samsung has successfully become the first to demonstrate a future 5G mobile network running at speeds of 7.5Gbps (Gigabits per second) in a stationary outdoor environment, but to cap that achievement off they also delivered 1.2Gbps while using the same technology and driving around a 4.3km long race track at speeds of up to 110Kph.
Crucially the test was run using the 28GHz radio spectrum band, which ordinarily wouldn't be much good for mobile networks where wide coverage and wall penetration is an important requirement. But Samsung claims it can mitigate at least some of that by harnessing the latest Hybrid Adaptive Array Technology (HAAT), which uses millimeter wave frequency bands to enable the use of higher frequencies over greater distances.
Several companies are competing to develop the first 5G technologies, although consumers aren't expected to see related services until 2020 at the earliest.
65256087
submission
Mark.JUK writes:
The United Kingdom's national telecoms operator, BT, has teamed up with Chinese IT firm Huawei to push data speeds of 3Tbps (Terabits per second) over an existing real-world 359km long fibre optic link by harnessing a "record spectral efficiency" of 5.97bit/s/Hz and commercial grade hardware and software.
The real-time 3Tbps super channel comprised of 15 x 200Gbps (16-QAM) sub channels, bundled together to provide combined capacity, and these were separated by as little as 33.5GHz in order to achieve the claimed spectral efficiency. In the future such connections could help to feed the ever rising capacity demands of mobile operators and ISPs, which are themselves attempting to cater for growing consumer broadband usage and ideally without having to build expensive new fibre optic links.
63270915
submission
Mark.JUK writes:
A research group working out of the Technical University of Denmark claims to have broken "another world record" in fibre optic data transfers after they were able to demonstrate speeds of 43 Terabits per second over a single laser and fibre optic cable (67km long), which is theoretically much closer to real-world connections than most other lab tests where multiple lasers and cables can be used.
Professor Leif Oxenløwe of DTU Fotonik said that his team had "used all the known, neat tricks that exist nowadays to make data in five dimensions: time, frequency, polarization, quadrature and space”. However one such "neat trick" is the decision not to use a traditional single core cable and to instead adopt a 7 core (glass threads) design from Japanese telecoms firm NNT.
Admittedly the new fibre optic cable does not take up any more space than the standard single-core version, but it's still a new cable and thus perhaps the "world record" claims aren't quite comparing apples to apples.
62060811
submission
Mark.JUK writes:
The Bell Labs R&D division of telecoms giant Alcatel-Lucent has today claimed to set a new world record after they successfully pushed "ultra-broadband" speeds of 10,000 Megabits per second (Mbps) down a traditional copper telephone line using XG-FAST technology, which is an extension of G.fast (ITU G.9700).
G.fast is a hybrid-fibre technology, which is designed to deliver Internet speeds of up to 1000Mbps over shorter runs of copper cable (up to around 250 meters via 106MHz+ of radio spectrum). The idea is that a fibre optic cable is taken closer to homes and then G.fast works to deliver the last few metres of service, which saves money because the operator doesn't have to big up your garden to lay new cables.
By comparison XG-FAST works in a similar way but via an even shorter run of copper and using frequencies of up to 500MHz. For example, XG-FAST delivered its top speed of 10,000Mbps by bonding two copper lines together over just 30 metres of cable. But this might be a problem for commercial operators, which will want to maximise profits by using more copper to reach more homes and not less.
61558245
submission
Mark.JUK writes:
Cable Europe, the official trade association for cable telecoms and TV operators across the continent, has published a new study with cable ISP NL Kabel that claims to predict that consumers will be demanding average broadband download speeds of 165Mbps (Megabits per second), with uploads of 20Mbps, by the year 2020. At an extreme around 2% of all users are also predicted to demand 1000Mbps (1 Gigabit per second).
The research is based off a "quantitative model", which was designed by a team working out of the Technical University of Eindhoven and Dialogic to predict demand for Internet speeds in the coming years. But equally some might view it as a piece of self-serving research by those parties with an interest in cable and one that conflicts with other studies. What a person "needs" remains very much subjective, balanced against how they use the technology and their expectations.
60781063
submission
Mark.JUK writes:
A team of international scientists working out of Aston University in England have pledged to tackle the pending Internet "capacity crunch" in major fibre optic networks through a new GBP1.5 million project called Petabit Energy Aware Capacity Enhancement (PEACE), which aims to "significantly" improve bandwidth and reduce energy consumption on related networks by mitigating the signal distortion that exists in existing cables.
According to Professor Ellis of Aston's Institute for Photonic Technologies, related signals "have been amplified to such an extent that they are now more intense than sunlight at the surface of the Earth’s atmosphere" and this causes the distortion. But PEACE intends to tackle this by using a balance of digital, analogue electronic and optical processing to halve the energy consumption of optical transponders and boost bandwidth.
"We will increase network capacity by maximising spectral use, and developing techniques to combat the nonlinear effects induced by the high intensities encountered in today’s networks," said Professor Ellis.
60684289
submission
Mark.JUK writes:
Chinese ICT developer Huawei has confirmed that it was able to achieve a record transmission data rate of 10.53Gbps on 5GHz frequency bands in laboratory trials of their new 802.11ax WiFi (WLAN) wireless networking standard. The testing, which was conducted at Huawei’s campus in Shenzhen, used a mix of MIMO-OFDA, intelligence spectrum allocation, interference coordination and hybrid access to achieve the result and the new technology could hit the market during 2018.
59995725
submission
Mark.JUK writes:
The European Court of Justice (ECJ) has today ruled that Google, Bing and others, acting as internet search engine operators, are responsible for the processing that they carry out of personal data which appears on web pages published by third parties. As a result any searches made on the basis of a person’s name that returns links/descriptions for web pages containing information on the person in question can, upon request by the related individual, be removed.
The decision supports calls for a so-called "right to be forgotten" by Internet privacy advocates, which ironically the European Commission are already working to implement via new legislation. Google failed to argue that such a decision would be unfair because the information was already legally in the public domain.
59940449
submission
Mark.JUK writes:
Japanese mobile operator NTT DOCOMO has announced that they'll make use of Ericsson's advanced antenna technologies and radio base stations in order to conduct one of the world’s first trials of a possible 5G based Mobile Broadband technology in Yokosuka (Japan), which aims to deliver downstream speeds of more than 10 Gigabits per second using the 15GHz radio spectrum frequency. But this is just one possible candidate for 5G connectivity and many organisations are still working to try and define an official standard, while most countries don't expect the first services to be deployed until around the year 2020.
56596147
submission
Mark.JUK writes:
The United Kingdom's 11-years long Mobile Telecommunications and Health Research Programme (MTHR) has today published a comprehensive report that summarises 31 research projects, which investigated the potential for biological or adverse health effects of mobile phone and wireless signals on humans (e.g. as a cause for various cancers or other disorders).
The good news is that the study, which has resulted in nearly 60 papers appearing in peer-reviewed scientific journals, found "no evidence" of a danger from mobile transmissions in the typically low frequency radio spectrum bands (e.g. 900MHz and 1800MHz etc.). So if you’re wearing them, you can finally remove those tin foil hats.
55778831
submission
Mark.JUK writes:
The United Kingdom's national telecoms operator, BT, has successfully teamed up with Alcatel-Lucent to conduct a field trial that delivered real-world data speeds of 1.4 Terabits per second over an existing commercial-grade 410km fiber optic link. The trial used a “record spectral efficiency” of 5.7 bits per second per Hertz and Flexgrid technology to vary the gaps between transmission channels for 42.5% greater data transmission efficiency than today’s standard networks.
The speed was achieved by overlaying an “Alien Super Channel” (i.e. it operates transparently on top of BT’s existing optical network), which bundled together 7 x 200Gbps (Gigabits per second) channels and then reduced the “spectral spacing” between the channels from 50GHz to 35GHz using the 400Gb/s Photonic Services Engine (PSE) technology on the 1830 Photonic Service Switch (PSS). It's hoped that this could help boost capacity to those who need it without needing to lay expensive new fiber cables.
54141625
submission
Mark.JUK writes:
A group of scientists working at one of Switzerland’s two Federal Institutes of Technology have published a new paper in Nature, which reveals how the performance of existing fibre optic networks could be boosted by shortening the distance between pulses of laser light using a Nyquist sinc pulse.
In simple terms the team were able to change the shape of the spectrum to be more rectangular, which meant that the pulses could interfere but the point at which they’re read remains clear (i.e. equivalent to reducing the space between the pulses). It’s claimed that the feat, which was achieved with a simple laser and modulator, could help to deliver speeds that are ten times faster than today’s.
52441883
submission
Mark.JUK writes:
The Ultra-Parallel Visible Light Communications (UP-VLC) project in the United Kingdom has successfully developed Light Fidelity (Li-Fi) technology, which uses tiny LED (Light-Emitting Diode) light bulbs to transmit data via the visible light part of the electromagnetic spectrum, so that a single bulb can deliver speeds of 10.5Gbps (Gigabits per second).
The technology works by causing the LED to flash incredibly fast. At the same time Orthogonal Frequency Divisional Multiplexing (OFDM) is used to further improve performance by varying the lights intensity and turning each of its three primary colours (red, green and blue) into data channels (i.e. each colour can send data at speeds of 3.5Gbps).
51952517
submission
Mark.JUK writes:
A joint team of German scientists working at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) have successfully achieved a new world record for wireless data transfers. The team were able to transmit information at speeds of 100 Gigabits per second by using a radio network operating at the frequency of 237.5GHz and over a distance of 20 metres (note: a prior experiment hit 40Gbps over 1km between two skyscrapers).
The radio signals were generated by a photon mixer device that uses two optical laser signals of different frequencies, which were then superimposed on a photodiode to create an electrical signal (237.5 GHz) that could be radiated via an antenna. But the team aren’t happy with breaking one record and their future attempts will seek to break the 1 Terabit per second (Tbps) barrier.
