Fiber Network Almost* As Fast As The Speed Of Light

[Gahars]

*And by almost, I mean 99.7%.

So yeah, "light speed". It's a common device in science fiction, but unfortunately, it doesn't line up with reality. As far as we know, it is completely impossible to exceed the speed of light - but we can at least try to get close.

And some scientists are getting damn close.

Researchers at the University of Southampton in England have produced optical fibers that can transfer data at 99.7% of the universe’s speed limit: The speed of light. The researchers have used these new optical fibers to transfer data at 73.7 terabits per second — roughly 10 terabytes per second, and some 1,000 times faster than today’s state-of-the-art 40-gigabit fiber optic links, and at much lower latency.

Extreme Tech

"Gotta go fast!" is, evidently, the team's unofficial motto.

If you want to know more about the specifics, by all means check out the original reading. It gets a bit technical, though, so be warned - it's not exactly light reading.

Now there are some limitations to deal with. There's some loss, and while it's relatively low, it's probably not going to replace typical glass fiber, at least not anytime soon. Still, for transmitting data across short distances, this could prove to be a monumentally huge boost. So that's good.

When asked for his thoughts on this groundbreaking development, the lead researcher only exclaimed "Oh shazbot!" before looping this video 24/7.

Well, I can't say he hasn't earned it.

 

[DinohScene]

Major bottleneck on that connection is the bandwith of the HDD/SSD.

Fastest SSD is like? 400 ish MB of write?

 

[Rydian]

*And by almost, I mean 99.7%.

Time...
Time!
TIME!
TIME DILATION, HO!

There's some loss

Ouch. Switchable networks have enough trouble with packet loss without the physical medium introducing some by default.

 

[The Real Jdbye]

But... fiber IS light. Shouldn't this be a given?

 

[tbgtbg]

Can't wait until they get things so fast that the data gets to you before its sent.

 

[porkiewpyne]

What? No porn jokes yet? I am disappoint

 

[SifJar]

But... fiber IS light. Shouldn't this be a given?

"fiber IS light" - uh, no. Fiber is a medium through which light can travel. I think what you meant though was probably something like "in fibre(optic) technology, data is transferred by the transfer of light"; which is correct. But not at the speed of light. Light travels at the speed of light (c, ~3x10^8 m/s) in a vacuum. In other media, it travels slower. The exact speed depends on the material in question (the ratio of the speed of light in a vacuum to the speed of light in the medium is called the "refractive index", n. Seeing as light travels slower than c in all other media, n is always > 1). With a normal optical fiber, it is ~59% the speed of light (0.59c).

What this team have done is make an optical fiber that is mostly hollow; air is close to a vacuum, and light travels much closer to c in air than in glass/plastic (which is what most of these fibers are made of). This is an achievement because the glass/plastic in normal fibres serves a purpose (keeping the light travelling along the fiber, instead of be transmitted out of the fiber), and what they've managed to do is overcome that limitation and keep the light travelling along a mostly hollow fiber.

(Most of this info is in the article linked in the OP)

 

[Taleweaver]

99.7% of the speed of light? Hmm...interesting. But what would REALLY impress me would be by calculating how long it would take to download all the porn on the internet onto your USB-drive.

What? No porn jokes yet? I am disappoint

Hey...I just got here!

 

[NightsOwl]

Will this "Fiber" help me stool?

 

[FAST6191]

how long it would take to download all the porn on the internet onto your USB-drive.

If you had a pipe that fat would it really be necessary to go in for local storage?

Speaking of fat pipes how does comparing the speed of light to bandwidth make sense this side of a Dyson sphere and other such thought experiments?

 

[Hielkenator]

300 000 km per second....okay but WHAT? 1kb, 1 tB?
And HOW does this convert to data rates? it''s a unlogical topic.

So basicly "something" is traveling at amost light speed, I feel a HYPE coming...just at the point we are leaving the "HD" era....lol.

Not to burst anyone''s bubble but light speed it acctually not a big thing at all concerning electronics and alike. It gets interesting when PEOPLE can travel at light speed
, who cares about something that is so fast you can not see or comphrehend even, lol.
Live in the NOW!!!

 

[Eerpow]

300 000 km per second....okay but WHAT? 1kb, 1 tB?
And HOW does this convert to data rates? it''s a unlogical topic as light is NOT data.

Read again.

 

[Hielkenator]

99.7% of the speed of light? Hmm...interesting. But what would REALLY impress me would be by calculating how long it would take to download all the porn on the internet onto your USB-drive.


Hey...I just got here!

Depends on the distance. If its about 300 000 km from your PC it takes 1 sec to get to your PC, calculating ping ( request and answer it''s about 2 sec...
But this is only theoretically offcourse as this is not the mothod to measure these things, it also depends on size....

Read again.

explain. my friend.

Major bottleneck on that connection is the bandwith of the HDD/SSD.

Fastest SSD is like? 400 ish MB of write?

So how did the come up, ( measure) with these lightspeed figures? When no tech is available? lol HYPE!

 

[Eerpow]

explain. my friend.

99.7% light speed is just the speed of the signal, a single binary digit. 10 terabytes per second is the bandwidth.

 

[SifJar]

Speaking of fat pipes how does comparing the speed of light to bandwidth make sense this side of a Dyson sphere and other such thought experiments?

300 000 km per second....okay but WHAT? 1kb, 1 tB?
And HOW does this convert to data rates? it''s a unlogical topic.

So basicly "something" is traveling at amost light speed, I feel a HYPE coming...just at the point we are leaving the "HD" era....lol.

Not to burst anyone''s bubble but light speed it acctually not a big thing at all concerning electronics and alike. It gets interesting when PEOPLE can travel at light speed
, who cares about something that is so fast you can not see or comphrehend even, lol.
Live in the NOW!!!

Perhaps you do both understand this, but I'll say it anyway; it's talking about the speed the light within the fibers is travelling at. As I mentioned above, and as is discussed in the original article, light usually travels ~59% the speed of light in a standard optical fiber. With this development, it can travel ~99.7%.

And of course, data is transferred by the light when we are talking about fiber optic communication. (As I understand it, pulses of light are sent along the fiber, representing 1s and 0s, making binary signals). If you can make the light travel faster, you can of course transfer more data in a given time period. And so a faster speed of light corresponds to a higher bandwidth. The article says "73.7 terabits per second — roughly 10 terabytes per second".

It is a big thing, it means considerably faster data transfer than current fibres (1000 times faster). However, there is also greater data loss, so it is unlikely to replace conventional fibres any time soon (although with that much bandwidth, I'd say it would be conceivable to send the data multiple times to ensure complete transmission, and still have it faster than current communications).

edit: eerpow managed to explain what took me 3 paragraphs in one line. oops.

 

[Hielkenator]

99.7% light speed is just the speed of the signal, a single binary digit. 10 terabytes per second is the bandwith.

Use the edit button next time.

Yes that what they said, but HOW did they do the conversion? it makes no sense.
It only makes sense if they calculated distance travelled.
If they would be further or closer should make a difference then. Wich in my book is not comparable with each other.
Makes a nice hype to compare it the fastest thing found in nature.

 

[FAST6191]

I get the speed in a medium thing and I am sure we could bore each other with discussions of coherence and total internal reflection until the early morning. It just seems irrelevant when you can respond with "stick another cable next to it and the bandwidth doubles".

 

[Smuff]

Southampton leading the world lol

All joking aside I actually work for a company in Southampton that has very close ties with the University of Southampton Optical Research Centre

We make "lasers" out of optical fibre, because we can.

 

[BORTZ]

If you had a pipe that fat would it really be necessary to go in for local storage?

Speaking of fat pipes how does comparing the speed of light to bandwidth make sense this side of a Dyson sphere and other such thought experiments?

It will be as soon as ISPs start going the way of mobile phone providers and start capping your internet usage.

 

[Hielkenator]

Perhaps you do both understand this, but I'll say it anyway; it's talking about the speed the light within the fibers is travelling at. As I mentioned above, and as is discussed in the original article, light usually travels ~59% the speed of light in a standard optical fiber. With this development, it can travel ~99.7%.

And of course, data is transferred by the light when we are talking about fiber optic communication. (As I understand it, pulses of light are sent along the fiber, representing 1s and 0s, making binary signals). If you can make the light travel faster, you can of course transfer more data in a given time period. And so a faster speed of light corresponds to a higher bandwidth. The article says "73.7 terabits per second — roughly 10 terabytes per second".

It is a big thing, it means considerably faster data transfer than current fibres (1000 times faster). However, there is also greater data loss, so it is unlikely to replace conventional fibres any time soon (although with that much bandwidth, I'd say it would be conceivable to send the data multiple times to ensure complete transmission, and still have it faster than current communications).

edit: eerpow managed to explain what took me 3 paragraphs in one line. oops.

No light speed in contant and will always travel at the same speed. Maybe they found a way to send the light/data burst at a higher frequency.( more burst in the same time.)
I would have no other way to get these facts together.
Laws of phisics .....