The requirement of higher internet speeds have been increasing day by day as the size of workable files, graphic and media are also increasing. In the same effort, a team of researchers from University College London (UCL), led by Dr. Lidia Galdino, have together broken the world record for the fastest internet speed with two other companies. The data transmission speeds reached up to 178 terabits per second which are around 178 million megabits in a second.
According to the university, the maximum speed can download the entire library of Netflix in approximately one second. As per the team, the speed attained is almost double the capacity of any system that is currently being used in the world. The transmission was done through different colors of light or wavelengths, providing a wider scope than optical fiber. The bandwidth that the researchers used was 16.8THz, which is much more than 9THz which is used more commonly. A lot of advanced hardware and software is used for the same including amplifier technologies to boost the signal over a wider bandwidth.
The team used Geometric Shaping (GS) constellations which used different combinations of light brightness with signal patterns to find the best possible combination for data transfer. The team also emphasized on the fact that this setup could also be run using the current hardware and infrastructure. The only thing that would be required is the upgrade to the amplifiers located on the optical fiber routes at intervals of 40-100 km.