[imagesource: Ivan Bajic /E+ /Getty Images]

Imagine every single person in your household was simultaneously streaming something, downloading at the same time, and buggering around on their phone.

Multiply that by thousands and you still wouldn’t come close to hitting any sort of speed delay if you were using the data transmission world record speed reached by researchers in Japan.

Using standard hardware, researchers at the Network Research Institute at the National Institute of Information and Communications Technology (NICT) achieved speeds 100 000 times faster than 5G internet speeds.

Another way of putting it would be that the transmission speed would support the broadcasting of 10 million separate 8K videos simultaneously.

Here’s The Independent:

NICT demonstrated the first ever data transmission of 1.02 petabit (PB) per second, equivalent to just over 125,000 Gigabytes (GB) per second, using optic fibres compatible with conventional cable infrastructure.

NICT constructed the transmission system using fibres with standard 0.125mm cladding diameter, which it described as “a major step towards the realisation of ultra-high-throughput optical links… compatible with existing cabling technologies for near-term adoption.”

In December 2020, NICT hit similar speeds, but that was done using non-standard equipment. Essentially, the large-scale deployment of that technology would not have been possible

I won’t try and explain how it all works, but Gizmodo has gone for a simplified analogy:

This time around, the researchers did away with the mixed-signal, multi-mode approach and instead reduced the transmission to just four “modes” each sent down one of four cores inside a custom fiber optic cable with a standard diameter.

Imagine a plastic straw with four thinner straws stuffed inside each carrying a different flavor of soda: a gross simplification of what the researchers created.

That’ll do for me.

The Japanese researchers believe that while new fibre optic cabling will need to be installed in the country, it would be “completely compatible with existing infrastructure, greatly reducing upgrade costs”.

Don’t hold your breath for anything similar headed our ways soon. At least we can score 100Mbps home fibre starting from as little as R695 a month through RSAWEB.

As an added bonus, sign up for RSAWEB fibre this month (June) and you will be automatically entered into a draw to stand a chance to win a Samsung 55″ UHD 4K Smart TV.

You can guarantee a 100Mbps line will do you just fine around the house.

[sources:independent&gizmodo]