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Internet Speed Record Broken (Again)

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the here-i-am-stuck-at-33.6 dept.

captain igor writes "CNN is reporting that researchers at Caltech and CERN successfully send 1.1 Terabytes of data at a rate of 5.44 Gbps. This is around 20,000 times faster than your typical home broadband connection and almost doubles the previous record. "

30 of 311 comments (clear)

  1. I wonder... by inertia187 · · Score: 3, Funny

    I wonder what they transmitted. Judging by the language in the CNN article, whatever it was, I hope the RIAA or MPAA didn't mind.

    --
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    1. Re:I wonder... by greenhide · · Score: 2, Interesting

      modded "Interesting"....*sigh*....

      Mods, think. Is there, in fact, a stack of DVDs you can purchase labelled "Library of Congress, part 1 of 5" etc.?

      No. Whenever lay tech writers talk about data, they describe it in terms of Libraries of Congress, as in, "This new storage format is equivalent to 10 Libraries of Congress" -- which I've always felt is a pretty bullshit quantizer, as the library obviously has things like photographs, movies, and albums that would take a lot of honking space, so much so that no storage medium exists that could conviently and economically store even 1 Library of Congress.

      Anyway, for those of you who didn't get it, it's a joke.

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    2. Re:I wonder... by danila · · Score: 2, Informative

      Whenever lay tech writers talk about data, they describe it in terms of Libraries of Congress, which I've always felt is a pretty bullshit quantizer, as the library obviously has things like photographs, movies, and albums that would take a lot of honking space, so much so that no storage medium exists that could conviently and economically store even 1 Library of Congress.

      Sorry to interrupt your crusade against ignorance, but I though you'd find interesting that as early as in 1959 among all people Richard Feynman himself spoke about storing Libraries of Congress (to be exact, about storing Library of Congress plus British Museum Library plus National Library in France). His estimate was that about three square meters of surface was necessary to store all books in the library (all pages visually, not the text in ASCII) using electron lithography.

      Speaking in terms of Libraries of Congress instead of terabytes or petabytes is not an oversimplification, it's an easy way to convey the idea of large storage to people who still confuse HDD capacity and RAM.

      --
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    3. Re:I wonder... by glenstar · · Score: 2, Funny
      Perhaps that should become the new standard measurement of data and replace "Libraries of Congress".

      SysAdmin:Sir, we just transmitted our daily backups and it only took 5 seconds! Thats, like, 1,200,000 goastes per minute!
      CEO: Great! Er, wait... what's a goatse?
      Sysadmin: Just a second, let me pull it up...
      CEO: Holy shit, I am going to hurl. (hurls viciously against the monitor)
      SysAdmin:Cool! Now goatse guy looks like TubGirl! (begins violently whacking off)
      CEO: You are so fired.

    4. Re:I wonder... by ealar+dlanvuli · · Score: 2, Funny

      so much so that no storage medium exists that could conviently and economically store even 1 Library of Congress.

      I believe if you visit the library of congress, you will see it stored in a convenient and economical way.

      --
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  2. Yes? by NetNinja · · Score: 3, Insightful

    And it will continue to be broken.

    On to other news

  3. I want that broadband. by wmaker · · Score: 2, Interesting

    and is also equivalent to transferring a 60-minute compact disc within one second -- an operation that takes around eight minutes on standard broadband.

    What broadband is this? my cable modem can't download 600 megs of data in 15 minutes.

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    1. Re:I want that broadband. by clausiam · · Score: 2, Informative

      Their math is wrong all over the place. 1) 20,000 times faster that standard broadband 2) "compact disc within one second -- an operation that takes around eight minutes on standard broadband". 8 minutes = 480 seconds, i.e. 480 times faster. This is a difference of about a factor of 40 from the 20,000 number. Also: 90-minute DVD download in 15 minutes. Assuming 3GB (shooting lower than a full DVD here). That would be 25Mbit/second. That cannot refer to "standard broadband" but neither to the previous speed record equipment so what is this "current technology"? Journalists need to start using their brains just a bit.... /Claus

  4. Not fast enough. by Medcoop · · Score: 3, Funny

    Until I can download a pizza in 30 minutes or less, I will not be satisfied!

    1. Re:Not fast enough. by Short+Circuit · · Score: 2, Interesting

      That might actually be interesting to think about when we get printing devices that make objects rather than paper printouts. (I'm talking about depositing materials, not cutting away as in a lathe.)

      Anyone know of any good discussions on atomic-level object imaging?

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  5. News Flash by MachineShedFred · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Technology improves over time.

    Why don't I just die from suprise? At least THAT would be news.

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  6. I gotta get me this. by stanmann · · Score: 3, Funny

    With this, I'll be able to fill up the IBM Storage Tank I ordered... I want to download the internet...

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    Food not Bombs is a nice platitude but it breaks down when you notice that the Bombees are usually well fed
  7. EVERYBODY by Doomrat · · Score: 2, Funny

    Shut up about porn.

    1. Re:EVERYBODY by Pharmboy · · Score: 5, Funny

      Shut up about porn.

      Interesting comment. Allow me to demostrate why we all owe a debt to porn, and the people who enjoy it.

      Back when VRC's first came out, they typically ranged from $1200 to $1800 each. The reason you can buy one for $49 now is because of porn and those who enjoy it.

      When video cameras first came out, they were the size of suitcases and cost in excess of $3000 each for mediocre quality. Now you can buy an exceptional quality unit for well under $1000, and get a decent model for closer to $500. This is because of porn and those who enjoy it.

      When computers first came out, growth was slow and mainly due to business' wanting to automate. Once computers became powerful enough to be useful for full graphics (386dx) they were still terribly expensive ($2000 for a stripped box) but soon came down because of porn and those who enjoy it.

      When the Internet first became available to the general public, in mass, I personally paid $80 a month for 80 hours. (ironically, not for porn, but for a BBS). Many before me paid much more. But now you can get dialup for $10 to $20 a month, because of porn and those who enjoy it.

      Like any new technology, the price can only come down once two conditions are met:

      1. Demand is high enough at inflated prices to pay for the research and development involved in bring out a new product. This allows a company to recover a portion of their original investment.

      2. Demand has to be reliable enough for companies to invest in excess manufacturing capacity. This lowers prices because it introduces economy of scale. It introduces competition because any profitable venture will attract capitalists who want to make a better mouse trap, cheaper. Eventually, it turns the new product into a commodity, where margins are razor thin and you can get the same basic product from a number of providers.

      In each case, it was porn and those who enjoy it that invested the money on the consumer side for these products. No one would have paid $3000 for a computer to email someone on a $80 a month 2400 baud connection. (think fidonet or google it) No grandmother would have paid $3500 for a video camera to take shots of her grandchildren, to play on her $1800 VCR.

      Microwave ovens became available in the 50s, but they did not become popular until the late 70s. Why? Because they have no porn value, so it took 20 years to get the economy of scale and demand strong enough for the price to come down. Had there been a potential porn use for the microwave, we all would have had them for $100 before we landed on the moon.

      We all owe a great debt to those brave pioneers, who worked tirelessly typing with one hand, pants to ankles, in the darkness of night. Because of their relentless pursuit of a better way to masturbate, we are all able to enjoy consumer goods at incredibly cheap prices. Even the third world countries are able to benefit with wireless phones where there are no wires, all because some guy sitting in his parents basement was patient enough to wait for a 256 color GIF image to load to screen over a 14.4kbit connection.

      So, the next time you see a pervert, go up and shake his hand, and tell him "Thank you for your contribution to society".

      Just be sure to wash your hand afterward.

      --
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  8. Someone do the math... by i.r.id10t · · Score: 2, Funny

    And figure out if this still beats a station wagon (or SUV or whatever) loaded with DVDs, CDs, backup tapes, etc.

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  9. the last mile by dilvie · · Score: 2, Interesting

    The real question is, when are we going to have better speeds for home users? Even "broadband" connections are slow. Is there any progress being made in this arena right now? Perhaps faster data transfers over cable lines?

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    MakePassword.com Mp3 Blog
  10. Re:How many hops? by ebh · · Score: 4, Insightful
    According to the article:

    CERN, whose laboratories straddle the Franco-Swiss border near Geneva, said it had sent 1.1 Terabytes of data at 5.44 gigabits a second (Gbps) to a lab at the California Institute of Technology, or Caltech, on October 1.

    What the article did not say was whether that was the same "Internet" we all use, or a specially built edge network.

  11. I broke that record... by 192939495969798999 · · Score: 2, Insightful

    I transmitted a dictionary across the room in .05 seconds, when I threw it. I think it's important to note the type of connection that they are using, protocol, etc... hardware? software? C'mon, guys! Post something in the article that lets us know some detail, so that I know it wasn't just a dictionary being thrown across the room or something dumb like that.

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    stuff |
  12. Yes, but by dustmote · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I still want to get off of dialup at my apartment. And even when I had broadband, there were still sites that wouldn't load very quickly. The servers are going to need some upgrading as well, I think, before bandwidth becomes the only bottleneck. Still, that's really cool. I hope to see something approaching instant response within my lifetime. Besides my old DOS computer, way back when. :)

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    -1, "1337" speak
  13. Re:The RIAA Can put that in their fife and smoke i by grub · · Score: 3, Interesting


    I could download every CD on the billboard top 100 list

    But.. would you want to? :)

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    Trolling is a art,
  14. Argh by Kelz · · Score: 3, Funny

    Ever think about SHARING?!

    While these guys are transferring at 5+Gbps, I'm stuck at home with my 28.8k dialup (no cable/dsl here folks).

    Just like the government studies that cost millions of dollars to figure out why mice will eat cardboard... I can put that stuff to USE other than breaking some damn record!

  15. How they broke the speed record by niom · · Score: 3, Funny

    They transmitted only zeros.

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    -- Repeat with me: "There is no right to profits".
  16. Yes, but... by jd · · Score: 2, Insightful
    ...when will my ISP provide these kinds of speeds?


    It's time to face facts. "Broadband" isn't, and won't be, until we're at least at the 1 Gbit/s rate to the home. In fact, with gigabit cards starting to become affordable, and with home networks on the rise, a gigabit link to the house may not be fast enough in only a few years.


    Running a modern PC over so-called broadband networks is like towing a Ferrari F1 car using a couple of Shire horses. Sure, it "works"...


    For the money so far spent on rebuilding Iraq, the US Government could have built a network of 2 terabit lines between every pair of States in the US, installed the clusters of routers needed to handle the load, and provided lines to every carrier of Internet and phone traffic in the country. They'd probably still have cash left over.


    This isn't to say we shouldn't rebuild Iraq. This is very much to say that if organizations and Governments can throw that kind of cash around as though it were spare change, then I'd really like to see some serious infrastructure upgrades in a certain country whose economy and security both need those upgrades to take placed.

    --
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  17. CalTech FAST TCP project by tessaiga · · Score: 5, Interesting
    Steven Low of CalTech's Netlab gave a talk at MIT yesterday regarding the modified TCP protocol they used to achieve this transfer. Those who are curious about the details can check out the Fast TCP homepage.

    Basically they showed that conventional TCP is not very good at scaling to large flows like the ones in the article. He described a typical broadband Internet connection as being able to utilize only about 27 percent of the available bandwidth, while their modified FAST TCP connection reached 95 percent efficiency. He had some nice test results showing how the protocols reacted to having to share bandwidth with other flows, and pointed out how when other flows finished and more bandwidth opened up, conventional TCP was very slow to take advantage of the increased bandwidth.

    There's an older Economist article describing the protocol in more detail for those who are interested.

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  18. What are they doing with they data? by Anonymous+Crowhead · · Score: 2, Insightful

    I am no hard drive expert, but even on my 15K RPM scsi drives, I am not sure I could write 1 terabyte in 30 minutes. What are they doing with the data on the other end?

  19. Internet Cop by 4/3PI*R^3 · · Score: 4, Funny

    Cop:Sir, do you know how fast you were going?
    User:Ummm, I'm not sure my speedometer has started messing up. It felt like I was going about 256 Kbps.
    Cop:No sir, I clocked you at 5.4 Gbps. Thats 20,000 times the speed limit. You blew past me like I was in reverse.
    User:Gee, officer it must be this new European packet switching system I've added to my cable modem.
    Cop:Tell it to the Judge. MAC and IP adddress please...

  20. Oct 10th: 6.8Gb/s by Tangent55 · · Score: 2, Informative

    University of Illinois at Chicago was able to achieve 6.8Gb/s a few days ago using the UDT protocol .... http://www.ncdm.uic.edu/pressrelease.html

  21. Bit Torrent by DeadBugs · · Score: 2, Funny
    • "1.1 Terabytes of data at a rate of 5.44 Gbps."
    Does anyone have a bit torrent link to that file?
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  22. Answer to the log of 2^(512*8-1) by Psyonic · · Score: 2, Funny

    I did a quick check with old Maple 8, and it told me the answer is 1232.717832. So there ya go. Glad to be of service to ya buddy.

    --
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  23. Re:A better question.... by Valdrax · · Score: 2, Informative

    [Why] have or download data that you never see or listen to?

    *Glances over at spindles of discs ~50 days of anime fansubs, which I will never have time to watch.*
    *Glances at 25 DVD-Rs of video game background music, which I will never have time to listen to.*

    Um... Obsessive-compulsive disorder?

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