Gadget in Extremis: Breaking world record data transmission speed

A team at Aston University can send data at a rate of 402 terabits per second, which is a world record. They were using “standard fibre” for the optical comms.

Normally, just one or two bands are used in fibre optical communication. However, the Aston Institute of Photonic Technologies (AIPT) academics were using six. They helped construct the first optical transmission system covering six wavelength bands (O,E,S,C,L and U).

To put it into context, this speed is over 100 million times faster than the internet connection speed recommended by Netflix. Specifically, of 3 Mbit/s or higher for a watching a HD movie.

The latest experiment beats their previous record, announced in March 2024, of 301 terabits (that’s 301,000,000 megabits) per second using a single, standard optical fibre.

Single fibre

“This finding could help increase capacity on a single fibre so the world would have a higher performing system,” said Aston University’s Dr Ian Philips. He was involved at Aston along with Professor Wladek Forysiak.

“The newly developed technology is expected to make a significant contribution to expand the communication capacity of the optical communication infrastructure as future data services rapidly increase demand.”

Note that the research was led by the Photonic Network Laboratory of the National Institute of Information and Communications Technology (NICT). This is based in Tokyo, Japan and the work also included Nokia Bell labs of the USA.

You can read our Technology Editor’s in-depth take on the research here. He writes, for example:

“Praseodymium, bismuth and thulium-doped amplifiers were used for the O, E and S-bands, and erbium for C and L-bands.”

“The fibre was water-absorption-peak-suppressed single-core single-mode with 0.125mm diameter cladding, and a coating taking this to between 0.235 to 0.265mm.”

World record

The results were presented as a paper at the 47th International Conference on Optical Fiber Communications (OFC 2024).

The academics highlight that they have funding from a number of bodies. For example, these include the EPSRC, the Royal Society and the EU’s European Training Network.

Image: Aston University – Dr Ian Philips

See also: Arduino shield demonstrates 25m optical fibre comms