Imagine downloading the entire Game of Thrones series in HD in one second.
That could soon be a reality thanks to a recent breakthrough in data transmission.
Engineers at University College of London (UCL) have broken a data transfer record by achieving a rate of 1.125 Tb/s using an optical transmission system. That’s nearly 50,000 times faster than current “super-fast” broadband speeds in the UK which average 24 Mb/s.
New Optical Communications Technique
Combining techniques from information theory and digital signal processing, the optical communications system that broke the record was developed with multiple transmitting channels and a single receiver.
Aware of the limitations in transmitters and receivers, the researchers applied coding techniques from wireless communications to adapt the transmitted signals to distortions in the system electronics.
They used fifteen channels of varying wavelengths, modulated using the 256 quadrature amplitude modulation (QAM) format typically used in cable modems. Grouping these channels together created a ‘super-channel’ which is widely believed to be the way forward for the next generation of high-capacity communication systems.
“Using high-bandwidth super-receivers enables us to receive an entire super-channel in one go,” said Robert Maher of UCL’s department of electronic and electrical engineering. “Super-channels are becoming increasingly important for core optical communications systems, which transfer bulk data flows between large cities, countries or even continents.”
“However,” Maher added, “Using a single receiver varies the levels of performance of each optical sub-channel, so we had to finely optimize both the modulation format and code rate for each optical channel individually to maximize the net information data rate. This ultimately resulted in us achieving the greatest information rate ever recorded using a single receiver.”
Fastest Data Rate Ever
The research was conducted to advance optical network infrastructure to support the recent explosion of digital content, cloud and e-health services, as well as the ubiquitous connectivity of smart devices referred to as the Internet of Things (IoT).
Ongoing testing will address the challenge of maintaining high-speed data rates over thousands of kilometers of optical fibers.
The end result? Downloading television series before the popcorn stops popping.
For more information, visit the UCL Optical Networks Group website.