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Terabit Fiber (In 2010)

Paul Heavens writes "A Japanese company has developed technology to transmit a two-hour movie in 0.5 seconds, the world's fastest speed achieved with fibre-optic cables in the field, it says. Kansai Electric used fibre-optic cables on power-transmitting steel towers to achieve the speed of one terabit per second, which is more than 100 times faster than inter-city data transmissions currently in use, a spokesman says. The company, Japan's second-largest power supplier, has not decided when to put the technology into practical use but says it is possible that it would come in 2010 or later."

182 comments

  1. "transmit a two-hour movie in 0.5 seconds"? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    You guys sure know how to bait the MPAA here, don't you?

    1. Re:"transmit a two-hour movie in 0.5 seconds"? by whathappenedtomonday · · Score: 5, Funny

      I guess it means that pr0n fuels innovation once again.

      --
      I hope I didn't brain my damage.
    2. Re:"transmit a two-hour movie in 0.5 seconds"? by romka1 · · Score: 5, Informative

      Its a poor way to measure speed... Since you wouldn't use this line to connect to internet directly you harddrive is not that fast to read/write data at such a rate. It will be used in between large ISPs to trasmit data.

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    3. Re:"transmit a two-hour movie in 0.5 seconds"? by Freexe · · Score: 4, Funny

      But what about ram, would my ram be fast enough to receive at that speed?

      --
      "In a time of universal deceit - telling the truth is a revolutionary act." - George Orwell
    4. Re:"transmit a two-hour movie in 0.5 seconds"? by Waffle+Iron · · Score: 1

      8 gigs of dual-channel PC60000 RAM ought to be able to handle the job.

    5. Re:"transmit a two-hour movie in 0.5 seconds"? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      But just think about how fast a virus can nuke your machine now!

    6. Re:"transmit a two-hour movie in 0.5 seconds"? by InvalidError · · Score: 4, Informative

      If you have an 8-ways dual-channel Opteron setup, you get 8x2x400x64 = 410Gbit/s... almost half-way there.

    7. Re:"transmit a two-hour movie in 0.5 seconds"? by jjeffries · · Score: 1

      And it's confusing to us, too--what does this measurement equate to in LoCs/sec?

    8. Re:"transmit a two-hour movie in 0.5 seconds"? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Actually, there is some truth to that.

      Have you ever talked to someone who does IT work for porn companies? They seem to be one of the few companies that understand how the right IT infrastructure can make and save money.

    9. Re:"transmit a two-hour movie in 0.5 seconds"? by tjansen · · Score: 2, Funny

      Depends on how they did that. If they managed to transmit it that fast by compressing it down to 20 kByte, maybe the MPAA won't care.

    10. Re:"transmit a two-hour movie in 0.5 seconds"? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      While your technically correct, you make it sound like a bad thing. I may not have an iPod, but we that can.... do.

    11. Re:"transmit a two-hour movie in 0.5 seconds"? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      .5 secs brings new meaning to the term minute man......

    12. Re:"transmit a two-hour movie in 0.5 seconds"? by forkazoo · · Score: 1

      Well, the bandwidth to one hard drive is, IMHO, irrelevant, even in 2010, or whenever it would become a reality. A few hundred high end PC's in that time frame on a smal-ish corporate network could handle it. Especially for streaming media, like video conferences, etc.

    13. Re:"transmit a two-hour movie in 0.5 seconds"? by Dolda2000 · · Score: 1
      Except that those 8 Opterons still share the same bus, so you're still stuck at the bus speed. For HyperTransport, that's around 160 Gb/s, if I'm not mistaken.

      Even then, however, the speed is still limited to what the bus that the NIC is plugged into. For a 16 lane PCI Express slot, that's around 40 Gb/s. Which brings me to my question -- what kind of hardware is actually able to receive and process 1 Tb/s? These guys have obviously built something that can...

    14. Re:"transmit a two-hour movie in 0.5 seconds"? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

      Not quite correct; HyperTransport is a strictly point-to-point connection, not a bus (this is the main reason why Opterons scale so much better than Pentiums in SMP systems). Multi-way Opteron configurations actually form a switched network, with each processor acting as a router (the upcoming 64-way Opteron solutions work by adding extra dedicated switch chips to expand the network).

      But you're correct that in practice the bottleneck will be the PCI-X or PCI-Express interface.

    15. Re:"transmit a two-hour movie in 0.5 seconds"? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      yes, but how many libraries of congress can it transmit in 0.5 seconds?

    16. Re:"transmit a two-hour movie in 0.5 seconds"? by wdd1040 · · Score: 1

      Carrier-level equipment is already capable of handling these speeds.

      --
      wdd
    17. Re:"transmit a two-hour movie in 0.5 seconds"? by InvalidError · · Score: 1

      Many LAN equipment manufacturers make 100Mbps switches with 1GbE uplink ports. Some have started making multiport 1GbE switches with 10GbE uplinks.

      So, all you need to use a 1Tbps link is a 1Tbps SERDES, a fast switch fabric and a suitable number of suitably fast downstream ports... say 8xOC3072 - 8x160Gbps. This could then feed 16x OC192 or 16x10GbE lines. Traffic aggregation has been with us for a long time.

      What I would be interested in seeing is all the wizardry necessary to lock on this 1Tbps stream and encode/decode it. Going beyond OC384 just a few years ago already required some pretty extreme tricks and 1Tbps is 50X as much.

    18. Re:"transmit a two-hour movie in 0.5 seconds"? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I believe minute man would have to download 120 movies with this kind of download speed.

    19. Re:"transmit a two-hour movie in 0.5 seconds"? by zCyl · · Score: 1

      If you have an 8-ways dual-channel Opteron setup, you get 8x2x400x64 = 410Gbit/s... almost half-way there.

      Now, if I could figure out a way to RAID-5 my ram...

    20. Re:"transmit a two-hour movie in 0.5 seconds"? by InvalidError · · Score: 1

      Opterons require registered ECC memory so it should be reasonably safe to aim for RAID0 instead.

      Let's see how Newisys' 16/32-ways Opteron clustering chip will fare next year... add the upcoming DDR2-800 Opterons and HT3, you get over 2Tbps overall system bandwidth, potentially enough to pull it off with a single system's RAM.

  2. Cliché by bleaknik · · Score: 0

    Yes, but can it stream Linux?

    Sorry... had to...

    --
    Deja Vu
    n. 1. The sensation that you've read this very article before.
  3. Details by romka1 · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Article has little details why is putting fibre-optic cables on power-transmitting steel towers achieves such a speed ?

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    1. Re:Details by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Putting it in power transmission line has nothing to do with this. They put fibre in the cable is for right of way and to save money since they have to lay the cable anyways.

    2. Re:Details by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Because Japan rarely buries cables. They are almst all strung through the air

    3. Re:Details by HotNeedleOfInquiry · · Score: 1

      Ever been to downtown Tokyo. I assure you there's plenty of buried cable there. In general, I'd say that Japan as a whole has neither more nor less buried cable than any other densely populated area.

      --
      "Eve of Destruction", it's not just for old hippies anymore...
  4. 2-Hour Movie Units? by Ignominious+Cow+Herd · · Score: 2, Funny

    How many Volkswagon-sized, Libraries of Congress is that?

    --
    Lump lingered last in line for brains, and the ones she got were sorta rotten and insane.
    1. Re:2-Hour Movie Units? by spectrokid · · Score: 1

      As it will be used for pron mostly, maybe we should have a unit like FFPS (full facials per second) or CSPS (C** shots per second)

      --

      10 ?"Hello World" life was simple then

    2. Re:2-Hour Movie Units? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

      Well, one terabyte is actually only 0.18 Libraries of Congress, so in Standard Units the transfer rate of this was about 217733 Libraries of Congress per fortnight.

    3. Re:2-Hour Movie Units? by HermanAB · · Score: 1

      So, that would be almost one Orange Catholic Bible per average human lifetime... (With apologies to the late Douglas Adams.)

      --
      Oh well, what the hell...
  5. Re:Dude by Trigun · · Score: 1

    And all the good parts of it before you even click the download button.

  6. Maximum transmission units by totallygeek · · Score: 5, Funny

    could you bump your mtu to 2937498723498, I don't want to keep fragmenting these...

  7. Cool, but... by Sigmund+Dali · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I'm tired of hearing about all these advances that we will NEVER see. Our public inferstructure budgets are lame, and I'm tired of hearing about a "market-solution". No company is going to spend the massive amount of cash needed to wire even one city with this, especially when there's not much of a percieved market for faster broadband. Why doesn't the FCC get off their ass and mandate this kind of thing instead of doing nothing? Also, why in the world does is this at least 5 years away? I mean, I understand they need to research this and then set up manufacturing and distributing routes, but I just don't understand why that would take more than a year and a half, at most. Stop telling me about things I want, but will never have.

    1. Re:Cool, but... by Daverd · · Score: 2, Informative

      Although I doubt this will see deployment by 2010, if it does, it will be in Tokyo or some other extremely high-density area. Why doesn't the FCC get off their ass and mandate this kind of thing? First of all, it's a Japanese company that's developing it. Second of all, America is so sparsely populated that even regular broadband is typically not economically feasible in many areas, let alone cutting edge technology. You'll get your Tb/s connection when it sees deployment in areas that make more sense first, and eventually the price will come down and it'll make its way to the states. I wouldn't count on it for a long time.

      As an aside, if you don't want to hear about things you want but will never have, stop reading Slashdot. =)

    2. Re:Cool, but... by LiquidCoooled · · Score: 1

      Its not just the FCC.
      Over here in England we are just having i-mode pushed down our throats.

      Its been in Japan since 1999.

      6 years lag.

      Just think if this was software - we would just be getting Windows Me.
      *shudder*

      --
      liqbase :: faster than paper
    3. Re:Cool, but... by Waffle+Iron · · Score: 5, Insightful
      I'm tired of hearing about all these advances that we will NEVER see.

      What do you mean? When I was a kid, fiber cable was just a novelty you read about in Popular Science. They claimed that it had the potential capacity to transmit things like War and Peace in just a few seconds.

      Well, guess what: Today, in the comfort of your own home, you can download War and Peace in just a few seconds.

    4. Re:Cool, but... by IdleTime · · Score: 1, Flamebait

      "First of all, it's a Japanese company that's developing it."

      What? Did you actually expect things like this to be developed by American companies? Why? With todays religious climate here in USA, science and technology has been put on the backburner. Add to that the horrible education system, infrastructure that is laughable, and the ingrained horror and antipathy against anything that may taste of regulations, USA will fall further and further behind the rest of the 1st world. If you take some time to look through /. and other media that reports on new technology, you will see that a wast majority of new technology is not coming from USA Actually less and less innovation is done in USA and in a few decades (with todays trend continuing), virtually none will be done in USA

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      If you mod me down, I *will* introduce you to my sister!
    5. Re:Cool, but... by Rydia · · Score: 1

      Yes, who can forget the great culture war between the religious right and Lucent. Technology was never the same.

    6. Re:Cool, but... by IdleTime · · Score: 1

      Thank you for a great comment, it actually underlines my point and shows that you don't even understand what I'm talking about.

      And people wonder why USA is not inventing new stuff anymore. Well, a quick read of your comment says it all.

      --
      If you mod me down, I *will* introduce you to my sister!
    7. Re:Cool, but... by Kjella · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Umm... so because people are unwilling to spend that kind of money, the FCC should force them to spend that kind of money through taxes? Besides, I don't want this. I'd be happy with 100Mbit (network, 100/100) to the wall. That's not in the "never have" category, it already exists in places like South Korea, Japan, many university campuses and certain apartment blocks here (Notway). There was a time not too long ago, when the main interconnect to my city of 150000 was 2.5Gbit, that has probably changed by now. But that is 25 people maxing a 100Mbit connection. Solutions such as these make sure I don't sit there with lots of bandwidth and nowhere to go. 1Tbit isn't all that much if hundreds of million of people try to transfer something over it...

      --
      Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
    8. Re:Cool, but... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Thank you for a great comment, it actually underlines my point and shows that you don't even understand what I'm talking about.

      Actually, your original post clearly illustrates that you have no idea what you're talking
      about. You have shown your ignorant bias and unreasoning predjudice. Please think before posting anything else.

    9. Re:Cool, but... by btarval · · Score: 2, Interesting
      I agree. Perhaps the problem is with how the infrastructure market is set up? It's all designed around the "big daddy" approach. For either DSL or Cable, you have to go through a big TelCo or a big CableCo to get access to a line. And they restrict your choices heavily to what they want to sell. Even those CLECs in the DSL biz have to go through the TelCo just to resell the same lines.

      You have NO other options for landlines.

      Since this approach hasn't worked, perhaps we need to get to the core of the problem by spinning off the portion of the business which actually provides the physical lines? That is, separate out the local Central Offices from the current Phone Companies. Instead of giving preferrential treatment to the Big TelCo's, let all of the businesses compete evenly here.

      The key point here is to actively encourage a business to actually sell lines, regardless of what those lines are carrying. Right now we have the opposite situation, where you are banned from carrying higher speed signals than what the Phone Company sells.

      An example of the effectiveness of this can be seen with "Naked DSL". Back in the late 1990's, some people figured out that they COULD get high speed DSL if they bought a "naked line". That is, a line without any of the normal telephone signals on them (these are commonly used by Alarm Companies, for home/biz security systems). At your home, you installed a high-speed DSL router, and at the ISP was another one. Presto, instand DSL.

      Just like in the old days when Dialup first started the takeoff of the first real Internet ISP's like Netcom.

      Of course, once the phone companies realized that people would end up by-passing the TelCo's for any time of ISP service, they quashed that immediately. Now they actively scan for any DSL signals on a naked line; and they disconnect the naked line if they find them.

      If instead you spun off the CO's into a business model which was based upon profiting from active line connections, then this would never have happened. Instead, the DSL industry would be encouraged to grow, with speeds even faster than our current Cable offerings (Japan has been bragging about such DSL "modems" for years).

      Of course, the Phone companies will fight this tooth and nail. They like having a discount compared to the CLECs. But the real question is at what point do we realize that the current scheme isn't working, and when do we cut over to a more market-driven approach to the core technologies? Only when we do so will we see real improvements to high speed connections. It is clear that the current scheme hasn't worked, nor will it work in the future.

      Something has to change if it is ever going to work.

      --
      The best way to predict the future is to create it. - Peter Drucker.
    10. Re:Cool, but... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I'm all for supporting it voluntarily, but I'll be damned if you are going to force me into it. You don't have the slightest moral right, nor do you have the slightest moral right to delegate it to government.

    11. Re:Cool, but... by Sigmund+Dali · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Just as people didn't have the slighest moral right to delegate anything to you, like, you know.. GOVERNMENT. Get your head out of your ass and realize you're living in a society.

    12. Re:Cool, but... by evilviper · · Score: 2, Insightful
      I'm tired of hearing about all these advances that we will NEVER see.

      THEN WHY ARE YOU READING SLASHDOT???

      No company is going to spend the massive amount of cash needed to wire even one city with this, especially when there's not much of a percieved market for faster broadband.

      Not with this specific technology, no. But already, companies (particularly Verizon) are starting to set-up fiber-optic networks to compete with high-speed cable. I've recently heard a FIOS network is soon to be built in a nearby city, so I would guess I'm only a couple of years away from getting it.

      Why doesn't the FCC get off their ass and mandate this kind of thing instead of doing nothing?

      Because this isn't a socialist country, where the government orders companies to do things they don't want to do, unless it involves public safety and the like. A free country doesn't mean you get everything you could ever want for free... It means if you don't like what companies are or aren't doing, you can start-up your own company and do it yourself. What's your excuse for sitting on your ass and complaining, rather than very directly doing something about it?

      --
      Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
    13. Re:Cool, but... by vertinox · · Score: 1

      I agree totally as well. Although it really isn't feasible with the current government budget spending...

      But if the government spent 100billion dollars in order to get figer to the curb of every home in America, I'd say it is well spent.

      Basically, what the Fed have to do is build the infrastructure and then sell chunks of to private companies. Might be a while... South Korea is looking better every day.

      --
      "I am the king of the Romans, and am superior to rules of grammar!"
      -Sigismund, Holy Roman Emperor (1368-1437)
    14. Re:Cool, but... by suitepotato · · Score: 2, Interesting

      With todays religious climate here in USA, science and technology has been put on the backburner.

      1980 called. They'd like their anti-religious hysteria back.

      No such thing is true. We continue to innovate and changes in the market and focus at various companies have nothing to do with any "religious climate".

      Sheesh. The way some /.ers would have it, we have people running around the streets in 1620s Pilgrim outfits with pitchforks stabbing anyone who works in technology.

      These sorts of links are for aggregation of existing backhauls for interexchange carriage as it were. Not for getting faster pr0n to your box. There's no need for anyone to mandate anything be done. It will happen in its time as it always has, those who move too quick or too late will suffer for it and those who move right on the money will make the money.

      --
      If my grammar and spelling are off, I am [distracted/tired/careless] (take your pick)
    15. Re:Cool, but... by IdleTime · · Score: 1

      What new innovation coming out of USA since ... let's say 1985... are we using today?

      --
      If you mod me down, I *will* introduce you to my sister!
    16. Re:Cool, but... by jZnat · · Score: 1

      The problem is, however, that you can't start up your own ISP that provides faster services than the ones the TelCo's provide because of their monopoly of land lines. If we had companies that sold the lines exclusively, then we'd have ISPs that buy lines from them and compete with each other to provide better services. We're effectively limited to the best services the main TelCo's will provide, and frankly, those services are absolute shit compared to places like Japan, and are also shit compared to what they could provide but fail to do.

      Example: if Comcast did not sell broadband internet access, but rather they sold fibre lines to ISPs, we'd have several ISPs competing to provide the better service to attract more customers, and Comcast would be one of the few companies competing for ISPs to buy lines from. It all works out...

      --
      'Yes, firefox is indeed greater than women. Can women block pops up for you? No. Can Firefox show you naked women? Yes.'
    17. Re:Cool, but... by RevWhite · · Score: 0

      I thought Windows Me was about six years late. . .

      --
      Hey, can I bum a sig?
    18. Re:Cool, but... by k512-arch · · Score: 0

      This makes me so happy, you don't even understand.

    19. Re:Cool, but... by evilviper · · Score: 1
      you can't start up your own ISP that provides faster services than the ones the TelCo's provide because of their monopoly of land lines.

      The telcos have a monopoly on physical access to POTS lines, but that's all. There's good reason for that, too, as the lines all have to terminate in the CO. You really don't want a buch of random companies to have physical access to do whatever they like with your phone lines.

      If you want to lay-down fiber, many local governments would be more than happy to contract right-of-way to you. If you can't raise that kind of capital, and want to start-up a more modest company, you can always do wireless (microwave, 802.11, etc) and still provide much faster access than current terrestrial services.
      --
      Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
  8. that's nothing. by Enjoi · · Score: 5, Funny

    If you throw a 500GB harddrive fo the empire state building, it's not only faster moving data that this, the data is accelerating.

    Beat that, japan :)

    1. Re:that's nothing. by FidelCatsro · · Score: 1

      Easy , they can throw an Array of 20 500GB disks off the Tokyo Radio tower

      --
      The only things certain in war are Propaganda and Death. You can never be sure which is which though
    2. Re:that's nothing. by fossa · · Score: 2, Funny

      Ha! My aerodynamic hd enclosure is still accelerating while yours is stuck at terminal velocity.

    3. Re:that's nothing. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Empire State Building is 381 meters (accoriding to random internet source). Time it takes to fall that distance is:

      t = sqrt(2 * heigth / a)

      t = sqrt(2 * 381 / 9.81) = 8.8 seconds

      In 8.8 seconds a terabit link transfers 1.1 terabytes, so you better throw down the whole RAID array if you want to beat it...

    4. Re:that's nothing. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      yeah but latency isn't so hot

    5. Re:that's nothing. by SamSim · · Score: 5, Funny

      You get quite a bit of packet loss like that, you know.

    6. Re:that's nothing. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      For the record, it is approximately 8.77 seconds. Anyway, he doesn't have to throw down the whole RAID array off the Empire State Building if it starts accelerating in a rail gun.

    7. Re:that's nothing. by lasse_2 · · Score: 1

      We have taller buildings that the Empire State building (ok is old) so we can accelerate faster ;) I look forward to get 1 Gbit to my home here in Japan soon. Lars in Tokyo

  9. Where's the beef? by timeOday · · Score: 4, Interesting

    That "story" is ridiculously short. What I want to know is, was that over *one* strand of fiber, or a big bundle of fibers with each at a non-record-setting speed?

    1. Re:Where's the beef? by Varun+Soundararajan · · Score: 2, Informative

      one strand or multiple strands is a good question.
      What about this? Do we have systems that can accept around a terabyte of data in its storage? Google has an operation speed of 4 tera-ops/sec source:http://cache.technologyreview.com/articles/ 04/04/wo_garfinkel042104.0.asp . Assuming each byte takes an average of 2 cycles (which is a very low estimate), google cant use the entire bandwidth, even with their world's largest distributed system infrastructure!
      . Are we getting to a state where we are going to finish off the remaining ISPs, now that telephone companies are all already done!.

    2. Re:Where's the beef? by earnest+murderer · · Score: 2, Funny

      Or the size of the file. I mean, under the right circumstances my lan can transfer a two hour movie faster than that.*

      *Bitrates may vary.

      --
      Platform advocacy is like choosing a favorite severely developmentally disabled child.
    3. Re:Where's the beef? by diablomonic · · Score: 1

      I thought the estimate was much higher than this? arent they supposed to have possibly the most combined computing power of any company (excluding nsa and similar government groups), somewhere in the order of 100 000 pc's, which, at an estimate of average speed of 1.5 ghz come in somewhere round 2 or 3 gigaflops each, for a total of somewhere round 200 to 300 teraflops (admittedly this power is not tightly coupled like a supercomputer,as it does not need to be for their purposes, but you did use google as an example, so...).

      --
      watch "the money masters" on google video
    4. Re:Where's the beef? by Varun+Soundararajan · · Score: 1

      the article is dated April 21, 2004. It says about inconsistencies in Google's presentation. Assuming that values are not overstated, I think, if they stop all their activity and just receive the data from the Terabit fibre, they shd be able to receive data for a second.
      The question is who is going to send data the other end ;) ?
      HAHAHAHA ==== This space is now not blank :)

    5. Re:Where's the beef? by fornaxsw · · Score: 2, Funny

      That "story" is ridiculously short.

      hehe and I still didn't read it....suckers.

    6. Re:Where's the beef? by timeOday · · Score: 1
      Or the size of the file.
      Well, they did say "one terabit per second."
  10. "Honey, did you pick up that new movie?..." by thrillseeker · · Score: 2, Funny

    Ahhh ... just a second ... yep - I've got it right here.

  11. It's about time. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
  12. more importantly by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny
    its clear we are running out of porn to choke this available bandwidth

    1. Re:more importantly by Universal+Indicator · · Score: 2, Funny

      I'm waiting for Vivid Entertainment's new line: Slutty Bandwidth Chokers Volumes 1-90. The box tagline could read "Come on baby, I want to suck your bandwidth!"

  13. I dont trust this by Psionicist · · Score: 5, Insightful


    1) They didn't transfer 1 Tbit/s in an actual network, at least it appears that way if you RTFA. I am more impressed with Bell Labs 100 Gbit/s in actual ethernet reported a few weeks ago. As far as I know they could have measured the rate photons got from point A to point B in the cable, worthless statistics, like measuring the speed of electricity.

    2) According to other news entries like RTFA, they don't contain any info whatsoever about how the company actually conducted the test. One source, Returters IIRC, says it's "secret". Right.

    1. Re:I dont trust this by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yeah, and it's a Japanese company, too. Those pesky guys! Of course a Japanese company could never set a new record - everyone knows that only US companies do that. They must be lying.

  14. Finally... by SharpFang · · Score: 1

    It seems finally the cables are capable of more bandwidth than a wagon of harddrives...

    --
    45 5F E1 04 22 CA 29 C4 93 3F 95 05 2B 79 2A B2
    1. Re:Finally... by Charcharodon · · Score: 1
      No way, my favorite "ISP" is the US Postal Service. Every year you see large gains in bandwidth with only a nominal increase in cost.

      A few years ago it was a 30gb harddrive going back and
      forth. 4days in each direction.
      30gb/4day*24h*60m*60s = 86kps upload

      Then it moved up to a 120gb harddrive going back and forth 120gb/4days*24*60*60 = 347kps upload a 4x jump in bandwidth in only 1 year.

      Now we get up to the present a 300gb hardrdrive going priority mail, (Priority even provide the box and it's cheaper/faster!) 300gb/3days*24*60*60 = 1.157mbps upload

      Those $7 priority mailboxes can hold as much as you can stuff in them. Sending 5 or so harddrives safely is no big thing.

      My current ISP verizon costs me $40 a month with a 45kps upload. In one year if used for nothing else I can send 1419gb of data. For a grand total of $480 dollars and one year of transfer time. You could add another $100 for electricity as well.

      To send the data by USPS
      $100 for 300gb harddrive
      $30 for a nice HD enclosure

      times 5 trips for below.
      $14 priority mail (there and back)
      $1 in gas
      $5 for McDonalds on the way home.
      For a grand total of $230 and as a bonus I get 1419gb of data coming back the opposite direction as well and it takes only 30 days to send the data verses 1 year. Obviously money can be saved forgoing the enclosure and spending it on a second harddrive along with the savings from no longer need extra postage to double your bandwidth.

      Can you tell I'm bored I've put way to much time in this email.

    2. Re:Finally... by irc.goatse.cx+troll · · Score: 1

      "My current ISP verizon costs me $40 a month with a 45kps upload. In one year if used for nothing else I can send 1419gb of data. For a grand total of $480 dollars and one year of transfer time. You could add another $100 for electricity as well."

      You're buying the wrong service from verizon.
      Verizon FiOS
      For that same $40/mo, up it to 2mbit/s
      Google calculator says 2 megabits per second * 1 year = 7.52375745 terabytes

      Granted, you can match that with a sizable quantity of 500gig harddrives in the mail, but thats point to point. You can't split that bandwidth between multiple sources with different stuff.

      --
      Pain lasts, kid. Its how you know you're alive. Sometimes I think this growing up thing is just pain management-TheMaxx
    3. Re:Finally... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I laugh at your crappy 45kbps, less-than-dialup service! Oh wait, you must've mean KBps didn't you...

    4. Re:Finally... by SharpFang · · Score: 1

      But dropped packets are rather costly.

      --
      45 5F E1 04 22 CA 29 C4 93 3F 95 05 2B 79 2A B2
    5. Re:Finally... by Charcharodon · · Score: 1

      I wish, I live in California City CA, the third largest city in CA (by landmass) which is WAY the hell out in the middle of nowhere. Bonus points if you can find it on a map. I'm jazed to have DSL considering they only started offering in 2 years ago beyon the first 1000ft of the local node.

    6. Re:Finally... by Charcharodon · · Score: 1
      Yep yep

      Personally I'd like everything to be in bits, but hell who looks at anything but the transfer rate which is in bytes.

  15. That's a lot of bandwidth. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    One terabit of network bandwidth ought to be enough for anybody.

  16. How do the Japanese do it by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I work in a multinational Japanese company. The project management is dire. There is no real structure, just groups of individuals working independently. If things are successful it tends to be through luck or through stressful last minute overdrives. It makes me wonder how the Japanese succeed with these projects while the west lags behind.

  17. It's not that much data. by CyricZ · · Score: 2, Interesting

    But by the time this technology becomes widely used, assuming something faster isn't found by then, we may very well have low-end home systems that can easily handle that much data.

    1 Tb of data is approximately 125 GB. The movie they're talking about is half of that, thus 62 GB. And that's probably not compressed. A PC with even just 64 GB of RAM could easily buffer such a movie in-RAM. With 500 GB hard drives being fairly mainstream today, saving such films isn't even that much of an issue, even without taking into account possible space savings via compression.

    It's more data that most common people work with now, but overall it really isn't a whole lot.

    --
    Cyric Zndovzny at your service.
    1. Re:It's not that much data. by lawpoop · · Score: 0

      "1 Tb of data is approximately 125 GB."

      Uh, a terabyte is either 1,000 or 1,024 GB.

      --
      Computers are useless. They can only give you answers.
      -- Pablo Picasso
    2. Re:It's not that much data. by zecg · · Score: 2, Informative

      And it's marked TB, not Tb - the latter is a Terabit.

      --
      .i lu doi ringos.star. xu do puku'aroroi dunli dopecaku leni virnu li'u
    3. Re:It's not that much data. by Swedentom · · Score: 1

      Yes, but this is a terabit, not a terabyte.

      --
      Sig Nature
    4. Re:It's not that much data. by ishepherd · · Score: 1
      With 500 GB hard drives being fairly mainstream today

      Heh, I wish. The cheapest SATA one I've found is this one for 376 GBP (700 USD give or take)...

      Are they any cheaper where you are?

      --
      fud, notfud, yes, no, maybe
    5. Re:It's not that much data. by InvalidError · · Score: 3, Interesting

      For a 2h of raw 8bits RGB 30fps video...
      DVD resolution: 720x480 = 220GB of raw video data on 8GB DVDs
      HD-DVD resolution: 1920x1080 = 1.3TB of raw video data on 20-30GB media
      Ultra-HD resolution: 7680x4320 = 22TB of raw video data (in NHK's studios)

      The 1Tbps wire speed probably includes framing bits just like most other serial links do so the actual usable bandwidth will be under 100GB/s with the typical 10bits/byte (4B/5B coding) approximation. Add other wire/link-level protocol details and the real-world usable bandwidth can dip even lower. 1/11 would probably be a more accurate wire-to-bytes approximation.

      This would still place the transfer at around 45GB... a little on the high side even for the upcoming HD-DVDs. The only uncompressed video signal I can think of that would be around 90GB/2h is 12bits/12MSPS sampled standard definition composite. I wonder how many movies are actually stored in this format.

    6. Re:It's not that much data. by CyricZ · · Score: 1

      The price is pretty much irrelevant in this case. The fact is that manufacturers such as Seagate are offering 500 GB drives meant for personal use.

      http://www.seagate.com/products/personal/barracuda .html

      See specifically:
      http://www.seagate.com/cda/products/discsales/mark eting/detail/1,1081,705,00.html

      --
      Cyric Zndovzny at your service.
    7. Re:It's not that much data. by Trepalium · · Score: 1

      That's assuming that you could find a bus and processor that would allow you to transfer that to memory. At it's peak, Infiniband only allows for up to 25 Gbps, and most CPUs are far below that at only 3 to 8 Gbps. I don't think there's any memory systems that could handle that inflow of data, either.

      --
      I used up all my sick days, so I'm calling in dead.
    8. Re:It's not that much data. by Kjella · · Score: 1

      This would still place the transfer at around 45GB... a little on the high side even for the upcoming HD-DVDs.

      Isn't blue-ray, dual layer close to 50GB? Sounds about right. Anyway, I think that's poor way of expressing it. 50,000 concurrent HDTV streams @ 19.2Mbit is more understandable (or taking the things you mentioned into consideration, perhaps 35-40.000 streams).

      --
      Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
    9. Re:It's not that much data. by InvalidError · · Score: 1

      Although HD-DVD has ~5X the resolution, it will require less than 5X as much bitrate to achieve better results than SD DVDs. Chances are that most studios will encode their titles to fit on single-layer media to cut manufacturing costs.

      I do not know if this is still the case now but it used to be more expensive to manufacture one dual-layer DVD than two single-layer DVDs. Since some titles still ship with two or more single-layer Extras DVDs, I am guessing the cost advantage might still be on the multiple single-layer's side.

    10. Re:It's not that much data. by billcopc · · Score: 1

      One of the main reasons why dual-layer discs are pricier to manufacture is because you have double the failure rate. Actually gluing the two substrates together is a piece of cake, but if either one of those layers has a defect you have to throw out the pair to keep the production lines in sync.

      Another strong reason is sheer soulless capitalism. It is a "privilege" to have dual-layer media, therefore the common american entrepreneur will charge a hefty premium for that privilege. It is no different than comparing low-end vs high-end hifi equipment, the cost of parts represents a minuscule portion of the price hike. If you want the bigger/better stuff, someone will make you pay dearly for it.

      --
      -Billco, Fnarg.com
    11. Re:It's not that much data. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It really isn't a test about data, the fact is its compressed so much it is actually being run on a dial up connection...

      fiber = House of Lies

  18. Cost?! by antifoidulus · · Score: 1

    The article mentions no details of what this bad boy will actually cost. If it's too expensive, who will actually use it?

    1. Re:Cost?! by jZnat · · Score: 1

      Of course it has no costs as it's not even made yet. The implementation was tested, but it wasn't mass produced, and it won't be for at least a few years as they say. My guess is that it will be an equivalent $40/month for Japanese subscribers...

      --
      'Yes, firefox is indeed greater than women. Can women block pops up for you? No. Can Firefox show you naked women? Yes.'
  19. If only... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I wish my hard drive could keep up with that transfer rate...

  20. Weak ring by VincenzoRomano · · Score: 1

    We all hope that within 2010 there will be a switching/routing product with enough power to handle such a fast link
    I fear that as of today even the fastest links between RAM and CPUs are not enoufh for that!
    So that Japanease company is now to partner with someone to investigate/study/implement such an I/O monster!

    --
    Maybe Computers will never be as intelligent as Humans.
    For sure they won't ever become so stupid. [VR-1988]
    1. Re:Weak ring by unleashnz · · Score: 1

      That's hardly factual. Cisco's CRS-1 carrier routing system can do 1152 (yes, one thousand, one hundred and fifty two) 40Gbits slots using eight fully populated fabric shelves with 72 line card shelves. That's about 46Tbits of routing capacity. I'm sure the wire clutter would be improved by jumping from 1152 40Gbits OC-768 circuits to 46 1Tbits circuits, no?

  21. For only $499.95 per month by gelfling · · Score: 1

    And a 3 year service committment, penalties apply for early termination. Other services will be bundled on exclusive basis including phone, video which are charged on a per service subscription basis as well.

    Remember, Americans; the FCC is designed to screw you.

  22. Are you sure??? by 278MorkandMindy · · Score: 1

    I would have thought that kind of news would have been on their website.
    Nope. Other cool stuff in there R&D section, plus an apology for an accident..

    So whats up?
    Slow website admin or is this one of those "articles" that appear on slow news days?

  23. 2 hr movie in 0.5s by Gja · · Score: 5, Funny

    Now we humans just need a way to watch that 2 hour long movie in 0.5 seconds

    1. Re:2 hr movie in 0.5s by Kent+Recal · · Score: 1

      No big deal. The relevant and/or interesting parts of most hollywood productions (e.g. spiderman) could easily be edited down to 1s. Now play it at double speed et wallah, full movie in 0.5s.

    2. Re:2 hr movie in 0.5s by HermanAB · · Score: 2, Funny

      That is easy - just skip the commercials with your MythTV box.

      --
      Oh well, what the hell...
    3. Re:2 hr movie in 0.5s by SQL+Error · · Score: 1

      Well, the bunnies manage to compress it down to 30 seconds, which is more than half way there.

  24. 3 minutes by dada21 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Over the years, I've been tracking the waiting attention span on my downloads and those who got from me. I've ran BBSes since 1200 baud modems were $500.

    The 3 minute mark seems consistent over the years as the shortest period of time necessary to acquire something of value. Shorter times are nice but not needed.

    To download a 2 hour HiDef movie in 3 minutes, we'd need a connection speed of 222mb/s (28MB/s). I can see little need for a format beyond this at any time in the future. In fact, in 1993 I figured a preferred video resolution would be 2560x1440, not much greater than 1920x1080.

    We'll soon see posts about how corporations won't want to spend money running these fibers to the home, but this is pure bullshit. Cities prevent more cable runs, not economics.

    Municipal Wi i is a huge waste due to ever increasing wired bandwidths and the costs and latencies of government changes would never keep up with free market changes.

    Allow ISPs the freedom to run fiber. Deregulate TV and radio frequencies in exchange for more wireless frequencies. You'll see the most amazing growth of information distribution in history.

    1. Re:3 minutes by takev · · Score: 1

      Yes, but by the time we have that speed, we may have holographic TV, which needs a pixel density of a couple of thousand pixels per mm. Or if you don't want to go that far, what about people who glad their rooms with oLED wallpaper, with a little bit of pixel density, that will add up to a lot of pixels to send.

    2. Re:3 minutes by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      vector based movies? Would most likely save space, and then you can render each in realtime at whatever resolution you want.

    3. Re:3 minutes by Dirtside · · Score: 2, Insightful
      Municipal Wi i is a huge waste due to ever increasing wired bandwidths and the costs and latencies of government changes would never keep up with free market changes.
      Municipal Wifi isn't intended to compete with free-market alternatives. It's a social service; a way to make sure that everyone can get cheap Internet access. It may not be especially fast, but there's nothing preventing you from buying faster wired (or even wireless) access.
      --
      "Destroy science and religion. Science would re-emerge exactly the same; but not religion." - Penn Jillette, paraphrased
    4. Re:3 minutes by eobanb · · Score: 1

      Wrong, wrong, wrong. Look at what has happened since the FCC deregulated in 1996. We don't have mainstream HDTV. The US is falling fast behind other countries in broadband penetration. Verizon is creating an FTTP monopoly. Under the current rules, all the fibre Verizon is laying at the moment is theirs, exclusively, and will be for a long time. This is unlike coax, which must be leased to anyone, and that's why you have Earthlink using TW's cable to sell their own broadband. It promotes choice. Rules that force the telcos to lease their lines to other ISPs helps grows the industry, NOT deregulation, which lets them screw consumers. Just look at countries that heavily regulate the telecom industry, and regulate it the right way. Those consumers are getting unmetered 50MB/sec for a few euros a month.

      Yes, Muni Wi-Fi is a waste because of wired bandwidth...oh, wait, except when you need a connection where there aren't wires, or where the wiring quality is poor. Mobile phones. Rural areas. Providing internet access to those who can't afford it. Just about anytime on-the-go.

      Look at what we've done to deregulate already, and then turn on your TV and see SBC trying to sell you bundled phone service with terrible quality DSL. Do some basic research first before spouting capitalist rhetoric, please. Face it, telcos are in it to make money, not serve the public interest.

      --

      Take off every sig. For great justice.

    5. Re:3 minutes by jiphone · · Score: 1

      Verizon is spending 60 billion dollars to build the FTTP network from the ground up, the existing copper plant will be available for other telcos and isps to lease as they please, why would you think that they should immediately give away a network that cost them so much to build? People should be thankful that a company is willing (in this day of stock price and profits drive decisions) to spend the money to build a full fiber network that is fully upgradeable as technology increases(due to the lack of any electronics in the field) that will be offering 100mb internet access by 2007 and currently offers 30mbs service for $59. Yes Verizon wants to make money with this new network, but they are the only company in the US willing to build a fully fiber network....sbc is building a hybrid network, and the cable companies have one of the most decrepid hybrid plants out there right now......and yes I do work for Verizon, I proudly run an organization that is building the FTTP plant.

    6. Re:3 minutes by GigsVT · · Score: 1

      You've fallen into the trap of believing that crap they call "deregulation" has any resemblance whatsoever to a free market. It doesn't.

      Real deregulation creates free markets, it doesn't just create some rules about how the monopoly should let competitors use their wires, rules that are easily circumvented by the monopolies.

      --
      I've had enough abrasive sigs. Kittens are cute and fuzzy.
    7. Re:3 minutes by Kjella · · Score: 1

      To download a 2 hour HiDef movie in 3 minutes, we'd need a connection speed of 222mb/s (28MB/s).

      Given some reasonable buffering and some overhead to account for other uses of the Internet connection, why would you be interested in downloading a 2hr movie in less than two hours? That is assuming we're talking about some legal download service that has the entire file, not the peeps you want to download from on p2p that only have bits and pieces. Even with torrents it would be possible to form a mixed strategy which would try to complete the beginning first, and predict when it should be able to start playing and still complete it on a just-in-time basis.

      --
      Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
  25. Aye Chihuahua!

      I'm glad I clicked the link to see the rest of the story :|

  26. Fast, but maybe needed by Mostly+a+lurker · · Score: 2, Insightful
    If one thinks of streaming full size movies on demand to homes, even assuming 100% use of bandwidth (impossible) infrastructure able to transfer a two hour movie in 0.5 seconds would only support 14,400 concurrent users. By 2010, the demands per user may even be higher with the need to serve up virtual reality type applications.

    If only 10 gigabit upload service for the user was widely available, one could imagine some great solutions to the problem of offsite backups (perhaps 20 minutes per terrabyte, allowing for necessary overhead in the transfer). Could this be Google's challenge for the next decade?

    1. Re:Fast, but maybe needed by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You're thinking of unicasting where file goes from point A to B. Multicasting goes from point A to whoever's listening /connected so your limit doesn't apply.

      This kind of bandwidth means that you can blur broadcasting concepts that are normally seperated into 'on-demand' (unicast) and 'channelled' (multicast). The issue for the service providor is that unicast is network inefficient/more expensive, requiring a per-user slice of bandwidth, which multicast doesn't.

      E.g. Multiple streams of the same movie can be staggered. You use the remote to 'step back/forward' which flicks you to another stream that started earlier. The user's perception is an 'on-demand' experiance from a multicast stream.

    2. Re:Fast, but maybe needed by Mostly+a+lurker · · Score: 1

      I understand your point. It works well in a situation where the number of movies offered is strictly limited. But, if you consider the case (that I expect will apply in the future) where the user can choose freely from a vast library, multicast is no longer a solution.

  27. 3Ms - 3Ts by suitti · · Score: 2, Interesting

    In the '60s, probably centered on the CDC 6600, an idea was promoted that a balanced' computer would have capabilities in a ratio. The 3 M's was one with 1 MIPS, 1 mbps, and 1 megabit of memory. So, it could executed 1,000,000 instructions per second, communicate to disk at 1,000,000 bits per second (100,000 bytes per second) and had 1,000,000 bits of RAM (one system had 130,000 bytes of RAM, for example).

    The box i'm using to edit this note executes on the order of 1 GIPS, with 100 mbps, and 10 gigabits of memory. That is 1,000,000 instructions per second, 100,000,000 bits per second (10,000,000 bytes per second) to disk, and has on the order of 10,000,000,000 bits of RAM (1 GB). (These numbers are rounded, and, no, i'm not terribly interested in my-box-is-faster-than-yours pissing matches - its just an example).

    So, if communications speeds will be 1,000,000,000,000 bits per second anywhere by 2010, that implies a computer with at lest 10 GIPS and 10 GB RAM - which doesn't seem that unlikely in five years.

    Oddly enough, I'm hoping to still be running this box in five years. Its only two years old, and I don't really want to get a new one. That is, i don't want to spend the money to replace it. More importantly, i don't want to do the administration involved to get a new machine up and running with my current set of capabilities. I ran my 1987 Machintosh II as my primary machine for over ten years and the hardware lasted an additional five years (and counting) to allow for transfer of data. It pisses me off that my most long-lived x86 based PC has lasted only five years. So, i've just finished migrating from the Mac to Linux, and the Mac (with OS/x) now appears to be the better choice (low administrative maintenance) again.

    With the recent announcement of low power PPC chips, perhaps Apple will abandon its move to the x86 hardware platform. Still, i've been pretty happy so far with my low-end Athlon's performance and reliability. Who knows? Perhaps i'd be happy with OS/x on AMD.

    --
    -- Stephen.
    1. Re:3Ms - 3Ts by evilviper · · Score: 1
      First, I must congratulate you on getting an anti-x86 troll past the moderators...

      I ran my 1987 Machintosh II as my primary machine for over ten years and the hardware lasted an additional five years (and counting) to allow for transfer of data. It pisses me off that my most long-lived x86 based PC has lasted only five years.

      You get what you pay for. Apple has always forced it's customers to pay for that kind of quality, even if they don't want to.

      Personally, I've had a really cheap 386/20 that lasted nearly 20 years before it finally burned out. I also still have a 10 year-old DEC Pentium Pro system that's happily routing packets for me. Those systems weren't put out to pasture because they couldn't continue doing what they were doing, but rather because I wanted to do things like new audio and video codecs, which they didn't have the horsepower to do. The same is probably going to be true of my highest-end (4 year-old 1.6GHz) system as well. When 1080 HDTV content becomes redily available (in codecs other than MPEG-2), my system will just barely be able to play it back smoothly, and (re)encoding it will be painfully slow.

      If you aren't involved in things like full-res video, there's no reason you can't keep using your 10 year-old system (with your 10 year-old operating system).
      --
      Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
    2. Re:3Ms - 3Ts by HermanAB · · Score: 1

      I never get rid of old PCs. When I get a new PC, I just put it next to, or on top of the old one - depends on the ever changing form factors. Everything is networked and headless. I work from a notebook in the living room. In a few years, I can turn the furnace off and just run the airconditioner year round even when it is -40 outside. Visitors locate my house by following the glow of the power wires...

      --
      Oh well, what the hell...
    3. Re:3Ms - 3Ts by grumling · · Score: 1
      When I get a new PC, I just put it next to, or on top of the old one - depends on the ever changing form factors.

      I know people who do that with old TVs. (Jeff Foxworthy reference)

      --
      "Well, good luck finding a judge that doesn't run a bestiality site."
  28. Why? by Quixote · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I don't understand the big deal here. Nobody runs a single strand of fiber; if you're going to be laying fiber in the streets, you put 100s (if not 1000s) of strands in there, "just in case". How is 1Tbps over 1 fiber any better than 1Tbps over 100 strands @ 10Gbps/strand (as is easily achievable today)?

    1. Re:Why? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

      how about 100 fibers of 1Tb each?

    2. Re:Why? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

      If you are leasing the fibre from someone else then the better equipment you can put on each end the less fibre you need to lease.

    3. Re:Why? by raynet · · Score: 1

      Well, you have installed those 100 strands of fiber and instead of 1Tbps (100 times 10Gbps) you can now get to 100Tbps.

      --
      - Raynet --> .
  29. Hold on... by Ninja+Platypus · · Score: 1

    The only thing I am worried about is how much faster can I obtain all the internet porn?

    1. Re:Hold on... by Dr.+Spork · · Score: 1

      Does somebody have a value for how much porn is being made in the world, in gigabytes? How many gigabytes of new porn each day? Once we figure this out, I think this would be a very useful unit when discussing data transfer. Forget libraries of congress. I want my 0.03 gpp (global porn production) wire!

    2. Re:Hold on... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The question is really how many hours a day will you spend m********g with it?

  30. Current DWDM equipment can do 320Gbps by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    This is not a big stretch. You can buy 32 wavelength x 10 Gbps DWDM systems from a number of vendors. That's 320 Gbps per fiber pair, 1/3 of what this article is claiming. Some of these systems are "40 Gbps ready". There's just not the demand for 40 Gbps line cards yet. With 40 Gbps inputs these same systems can carry 1.2 Tbps.

    So the interesting question is not whether it was 1 Tbps on a single fiber (not new tech), but whether it was on a single wavelength, and at what distance. The article doesn't say.

    But the article doesn't say "terabit" either. 1 Terabit/second == 125 Gigabytes/second. Or 62.5 GB in half a second. That's a rather big movie file. I guess it's not in mpeg4. :-)

  31. In the year 2010 by patrickclay · · Score: 1

    And meanwhile, here in the US, I will still be paying outrageous prices for 16Mb/s connections

    1. Re:In the year 2010 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Same thing in Finland, I'm suffering on this 20Mbps connection, I have to pay over $30 month (at least there's no transfer limits) and I get no more than a bit over 2MB/s downlink! What a terrible, terrible life. Almost like famine, but worse!

    2. Re:In the year 2010 by fearspooky · · Score: 0

      that's a pretty good deal actually.. my dad pays $60 a month from speakeasy for 1.5mbit/700kb connection and we only get 1.1mbit down. oh well.. at least there's no transfer limit.

  32. Not impressive for a fiber by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative

    It is only impressive if they are doing it by using a single wavelength on the fiber. Systems that could transmit over a terabit on a fiber have been around since the internet boom. See for example:

    http://www.ciena.com/products/products_261.htm

    Look under Scalable Capacity about two thirds down the page. They can to 1.9 Tb and have been in production for years.

  33. Journalism has Crashed and Burned by Doc+Ruby · · Score: 2, Insightful

    This article, like every other one we read these days, is not reporting, it's public relations. Even the point quoted in the summary, "2 hour movie in 0.5 seconds", is useless for anything but getting a technohick to say "wow". Because no user can get that speed, even just due to RAM/CPU speeds, or will, because they certainly won't be the only user sharing the bandwidth. And because a "movie" is an undefined quantity, especially now that we're dealing not only with DVD and its incompatible competing successors, but also digital cinemas. This reporter could have spend a half hour researching (or paying a researcher) to verify and corroborate the accuracy and relevance of the quotes no doubt faxed by the power company's PR department. Instead, the reporter and their editors decided that their story was "news" solely because it's news to them. But not to nerds - to us, it's "Libraries of Congress per second", which was expectable nonsense when reporters hadn't used the Internet. Now that they use these systems as much as we do, it's obvious that what they do ain't reporting, it's typing.

    --

    --
    make install -not war

    1. Re:Journalism has Crashed and Burned by slavemowgli · · Score: 1

      End users won't get that speed, but even though I didn't RTFA, I assume that's not what they were talking about, anyway. Nobody seriously expects everyone to have a 1 Tbps broadband line at home in five years; it's obviously meant for big ISPs, research centres (you'd be surprised by the sheer amount of data a particle accelerator gathers/generates!) and so on. And those obviously aren't users who'll be limited by what a single standard off-the-shelf PC can do. :)

      --
      quidquid latine dictum sit altum videtur.
    2. Re:Journalism has Crashed and Burned by CaptainFork · · Score: 0

      I think they do more cut-and-paste than typiing, actually

    3. Re:Journalism has Crashed and Burned by Doc+Ruby · · Score: 1

      That's why I said "they certainly won't be the only user sharing the bandwidth". The PC bottleneck is just one of the many ways to tell the stenographer^Wreporter just repeated the marketspeak rather than tell the story. A real report would bring up the fact that power companies like this one have been making a lot of noise about Broadband Over Power Lines, with which these fibers would directly compete. But that would require a reporter.

      --

      --
      make install -not war

  34. Terabit transmission is nothing new by raurublock · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Nippon Telegram and Telephone had succeeded 3Tbps transimission on single optical fiber six years ago. Then what Kansai Electric achieved? They claims terabit transmission in OUTDOOR environment is the first time in the history. See http://www.kepco.co.jp/pressre/2005/1026-1j.html for detailed Kansai Electric's press release, unfortunately written in Japanese.

    1. Re:Terabit transmission is nothing new by MightyMartian · · Score: 1

      Translated Press Release: This is the Empire of Japan. All your bases are us!

      --
      The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
  35. Mabey by then I could get DSL in my area. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Funny

    Mabey by then I could get DSL in my area.

  36. Yeah, but he's not talking about a terabyte by Andy+Dodd · · Score: 1

    Tb = Terabit = 0.125 TB = 125 GB

    --
    retrorocket.o not found, launch anyway?
  37. It's not by Andy+Dodd · · Score: 1

    And if anything, it's worse. performing DWDM (dense wavelength division multiplexing - this fiber most likely carries 1024 or more slower channels that add up to a total 1 Tb/sec capacity) is difficult, more difficult than taking seperate fibers and connecting them to individual machines.

    --
    retrorocket.o not found, launch anyway?
  38. Sufficient speed for remote storage by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Time for internet bootable computers?
    Imagine the distributed processing potential of this?
    Applicaton and OS rental?
    Videophone/videoconferencing almost indistinguishable from being there?
    Would it bring new meaning to installing Debian directly from the internet?

    Nevermind all that, fire up the Quake server. Deathmatch anyone? Give me a connection like that and will be the LPB from hell.

  39. We're talking about terabits, not terabytes. by CyricZ · · Score: 0, Flamebait

    Can you please read the goddamn topic summary? Like it clearly says, we're discussing data transmission speeds of "one terabit per second."

    Please don't join into our discussions if you don't even know what we're talking about.

    --
    Cyric Zndovzny at your service.
  40. How... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    ...is that different from non-Japanese multinationals?

  41. oooow, by Dr.+Spork · · Score: 4, Funny

    0.5 seconds? But I want it now!

    1. Re:oooow, by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      C'mon, relax. Let's have some buffalo wings -- how about that big fella there?

  42. Obligtory.... by Rod+Beauvex · · Score: 0

    "Never underestimate the bandwidth of a station wagon full of data tapes."

  43. whats the point here? by Rooked_One · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I mean, we all run the same type of hard drives that can barely get over 10 megs of transfer speed a second (if you have a raptor or perhaps a raid array), so why are all these people trying to break the latest record? Where is that going to get us besides making these lines of transmit our backbones for the internet? And my second question is, how did they do this.... did they store the movie in a ramdrive of some sort and transfer it to a ramdrive, becuase its obvious its not possible with CONVENTIONAL rotary drives.

    1. Re:whats the point here? by Nintendork · · Score: 2, Informative

      This will primarily be used for backbones. You have to remember though that backbones are always in need of more bandwidth. Many telecom providers are already utilizing VoIP to transfer voice thousands of miles. Also, LAN backbones could use the bandwidth to support gigabit enabled workstations and eventually, 10GbaseT enabled servers.

    2. Re:whats the point here? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Fuck, you are a gimp. This will most probably not be used to let you download your fucking pr0n and Counter Strike updates dickhead.
      The oly real application has to be for links between 2 or more 1st tier carriers - get your head out of your arse

    3. Re:whats the point here? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Fuck, you are a shitsucking cockbag.

      Even if the links are primarily used as backbone links, bandwidth does propagate downward, and many systems are now disk I/O bound.

      Perhaps instead of slinging meaningless insults, you fucking hairless monkey with the brain the size of a hamster's slimy nutsack, you could think a bit more before committing your mental vomit to the screen.

    4. Re:whats the point here? by xornor · · Score: 1

      monkey balls! monkey balls! shit eating monkey ball licking... oh wait whats going on... where am i? monkey balls!

  44. Multiple channels? by j1m+5n0w · · Score: 1

    Perhaps a subtler question would we whether they used one wavelength or multiple wavelengths. Modern long-distance fiber optic systems can run several hundred OC-192s over one fiber pair (one strand in each direction) using dense wavelength division multiplexing (DWDM), and can easily exceed 1tbps.

    1. Re:Multiple channels? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      A 1.6TB fibre is already laid in a loop from SF to Aleutian Pt, to Japan, to Hawaii, to LA and back to SF. Done dusted and laid.

      Over 100 wavlengths at 10Gb s-1 each in 16 fibres,

      So this is not news

      I was working on the repeaters for that contract so I know the rates are there.

  45. Re:Kansai Electric already supplies 1Gbit internet by theskeptic · · Score: 1

    The pages are in japanese but Kansai Electric has a subsidiary- K-Optic ISP. . K-Optic started 1 gigabit shared internet service in september, 05.

    For more details on why such high speed access is taking root in japan, read this article from foreignaffairs.org. Broadband nation

  46. slower than what's available now by j1m+5n0w · · Score: 1
    I'm tired of hearing about all these advances that we will NEVER see.
    What do you mean? Using DWDM, there have been systems available to run a singlemode fiber pair at multi-terabit speeds for years. If they were able to achieve 1tbps at one wavelength, that's an impressive accomplishment, but the article doesn't say.
  47. The 'No Shit' Minute of the Month by heinousjay · · Score: 2

    Face it, telcos are in it to make money, not serve the public interest.

    Are you expecting a capitalist to argue against this statement? There's not really a lot to face, here.

    --
    Slashdot - where whining about luck is the new way to make the world you want.
  48. Not as fast as the Italians by MacFreek · · Score: 3, Informative

    CNIT in Italy has reached up to 2.5 Tb/s; I do not know the details, but I once witnessed a presentation by one of their scientists, Gianluca Meloni. He seem to have a paper published in proceedings of ECOC 2005, called "10GHz to 2.5THz Optical Frequency Multiplication". Surely that contains more information.

    By the way -- 0.5s * 1Tb/s = 500 Gbit = 64 GByte = 58 GiByte. Pretty long movie, I'd say :-)

    1. Re:Not as fast as the Italians by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Nah, its just a BluRay movie!

  49. MPAA is already using this line and one-way forums by jbn-o · · Score: 1

    Speaking of which, Jack Valenti has used information like this in his MPAA stump speech. Last year, Valenti was an invited speaker at the Roger Ebert Overlooked Film Festival. He spoke at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in the Pine Lounge of the Illini Union. He gave his usual emotional arguments including how researchers can transmit a 2-hour movie in some short period of time.

    It was a one-sided venue, by design. Nobody but the audience was there to speak against any of his points. Apparently, Ebert doesn't want an informative discussion expressing an array of views, so he won't invite articulate speakers like Siva Vaidhyanathan, Prof. Lawrence Lessig, or those who back interesting copyright bills like the old HR2601, the Public Domain Enhancement Act. So giving context with some copyright history, responding to his arguments including Constitutional interpretation, and generally explaining the social value of a leaky copyright system is left up to people who happen to be in the room.

  50. Pfft by Tidal+Flame · · Score: 1

    1Tb/s? Waste of money, if you ask me. 640K/s should be enough for anybody.

    1. Re:Pfft by BlackMesaLabs · · Score: 0

      Lucky no one asked you, then :)

  51. municipal WiFi by falconwolf · · Score: 1

    Municipal WiFi/WiMax is a huge waste due to ever increasing wired bandwidths and the costs and latencies of government changes would never keep up with free market changes.

    Municipalities are putting up WiFi/WiMax because businesses won't. If they did then local governments won't feel the need to install WiFi/WiMax. Fact is the only way some localities will only get broadband, wired or wireless, is if they put it up themselves. Don't get me wrong, I don't want taxes used to pay for any of it. It should instead be supported by subscribers, er those who use it. It should also be run by business(es) and/or other organizations. What the government can do is issue munis to pay for the infratructure and then have the service payoff the munis.

    Deregulate TV and radio frequencies in exchange for more wireless frequencies.

    Get rid of the FCC period.

    Faclon
    1. Re:municipal WiFi by ziggit · · Score: 1

      If you get rid of the FCC there will be no wireless that is even remotely useable. There would be mass chaos, I mean think of all the things that the fcc keeps devices from doing http://ftp.fcc.gov/oet/info/rules/part15/part15-91 905.pdf

  52. Conservative, capitalist, and proud of it. by falconwolf · · Score: 1

    Don't you mean Liberal and capitalist? Adam Smith who's considered the father of capitalism believed in small government and freedom and was very much a liberal. Unfortunately all too many people confuse their Classical Liberalism with how the word is used today, which isn't the liberalism of small governement or liberty at all.

    Falcon
    1. Re:Conservative, capitalist, and proud of it. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It's all semantics. I'm really just trolling for sympathetic mod points ;-)

  53. FCC by falconwolf · · Score: 1

    If you get rid of the FCC there will be no wireless that is even remotely useable. There would be mass chaos,

    There might be chaos for a short period but not for long. Chaos will rob businesses of profits and they will be forced to self regulate. Simply mass media won't be able to deal with interference from competitors. If company A were to say increase their broadcasting power this would interfer with company B's broadcasting so B would increase their transmission's power which would interfer with A and with Company C. So either they would get together to eliminate interference each causes the other or they will end up in an arms race. Aa an arms race would increase their costs while reducing income it's more likely they would cooperate to find an answer acceptable to all parties. Quite simply the FCC was started in an era where the airwaves amd communications were limited. The broadcasting technology of that tyme needed a relatively large spectrum of airwaves to broadcast without interference, however using today's tech the bandwidth needed is much more narrow. Fact is today it's the FCC and regulations that prevents or hinders broad availability of wireless broadband and other technologies. "Reason" magazine earlier this year or late last year had an article on this. And the CATO Institute had some studies on it also. You may mention these are slanted to the freemarket but the FCC is biased as well. On the technical front the "IEEE Spectrum had an article on this in the print issue earlier as well saying somwhat the same, that FCC regulations were appropriate at first but that as tech has advanced these old regulations are now hindering advancements, availability of technology.

    Falcon
    1. Re:FCC by jiphone · · Score: 1

      Forgive me, but that is one of the most moronic things I have ever read. You obviously know nothing of the FCC and what it does, except maybe that it regulates the telcos and censors Howard Stern.If the FCC did not exist, we would end up with baby monitors bringing down commercial airliners and perhaps furbies launching weapons...I wouldn't want to wait for the whole "self regulation" thing.

    2. Re:FCC by falconwolf · · Score: 1

      If the FCC did not exist, we would end up with baby monitors bringing down commercial airliners and perhaps furbies launching weapons...I wouldn't want to wait for the whole "self regulation" thing.

      The FCC is neither needed to prevent this nor actually does prevent it. Years ago I lived across the street from someone who had a CB radio at home and he used it frequently. We could tell he was using it because different appliances in the house, including the toaster, would start chattering when he was using it. And the thing is is that we lived a few miles from an airport and had airplanes landing and taking off passing over the neighberhood all the tyme. As for baby monitors, all it would take is one lawsuit against the manufacturer and/or bad publicity to stop them from making bad monitors.

      You obviously know nothing of the FCC and what it does, except maybe that it regulates the telcos and censors Howard Stern

      Let me get this out of the way first, all I care about Howard Stern is if his speech is censored. I don't and never have listened to him. Actually I haven't listened to any talk radio in years. About the only tyme I listen to the radio is when I drive and when I do I listen to jazz, at home I listen to my cds and tapes which includes Classical, country, and rock and roll including southern fried rock, I only wish I still had my turntable, reel to reel, and the records and tapes I used to have. As for what the FCC does, I know it does more than just regulate telcos and censors people. For instance I know it licenses amateur/ham radio operators. Though not licensed myself friends mine were and I wanted to get my license but I wasn't that good with morse code. I don't know if it's true now but I once heard FCC got rid of the morse code requirement to get an amateur radio operators license. Do you also know that the FCC started out as the FRC, Federal Radio Commission?

      Falcon
  54. Not useful by salmonz · · Score: 2, Insightful

    We don't even use the fibre we have available today. So what's the point?

    1. Re:Not useful by blankoboy · · Score: 1

      Who's we? North America....yes, you guys majorly suck the right nut of the Internet's hairy sack. Come to Japan or Korea to see what speed is. pwn3d by us yella folks and our fast fibers!

  55. Ping Time .. by bizitch · · Score: 1

    D00d - like - my Quake 4 ping time will totally rock with this ...

    --
    ---- "Logoff! That cookie shit makes me nervous!" - A. Soprano
  56. As has been said before... by earth_daemon · · Score: 0

    I WANT IT NOW! But then again the other components of the machine wouldn't really be able to keep uo so it isn't the best thing ever made.

    --
    Have a good life, earth.
  57. Vrei sa pleci dar NUMA NUMA iei by tepples · · Score: 1

    Except that those 8 Opterons still share the same bus

    Not necessarily. NUMA is more than just a web fad based on a fat guy lip-syncing to an O-Zone song. Non-Uniform Memory Access refers to an architecture in which each CPU has some of the memory directly connected to it for fast access, but all the CPUs can see all the memory. I'd imagine that it might be possible to do something similar for channel bonded network connections too.

    Besides, channels of this speed are typically handled by router ASICs, not CPUs, especially inside Cisco routers (which don't let you see that thong either).

  58. Re:Hold on...some stats by iggymanz · · Score: 1

    There is 15TB of pr0n movies in existence: 7.2TB of that is made in Japan, and 7.5TB of the remainder contains Ron Jeremy.

  59. I know! by hausrath · · Score: 1

    The only reason it goes so fast is because the data is going from top to bottom on the towers. Everyone knows the speed of light changes as it accelerates downhill! If they had transmitted from the bottom up I bet it wouldn't have even made it all the way...

  60. So... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    ...for the first time, my pr0n would finish up before I did?

  61. My transporter will be wired... by slowhand · · Score: 1

    With speeds like this I'm giving up the Wifi version, but only after I've teleported cables there.

    --
    Busy aligning my non-linear thoughts.