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Terabit Fiber (In 2010)

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the sign-me-up dept.

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."

9 of 182 comments (clear)

  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.

      --
      Visit my site @ http://www.madtorrent.com
  2. Maximum transmission units by totallygeek · · Score: 5, Funny

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

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    Click here or here.
  3. 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 SamSim · · Score: 5, Funny

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

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      qntm.org
  4. 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.

  5. 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.

  6. 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